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The Scarlet Letter See page 108 







ajatotljornc’s HJorlts. 

ILLUSTRATED LIBRARY EDITION. 


THE 

SCARLET LETTER, 

AND 

THE BLITHEDALE ROMANCE. 


BY 


NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE. 

H 


TWO VOLUMES IN ONE. 



BOSTON: 

HOUGHTON, OSGOOD AND COMPANY. 
W%e ftttat&e Itas, (tatbritige. 

1879. 


T 2 3 

•l-bu Sc 

t>>i . . - 

'1 




COPYRIGHT, 1850. 

By NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE. 


Copyright, 1878. 

By ROSE HAWTHORNE LATHROP. 


- - '-v ' 

% \ 


University Press: 
Welch, Bigelow, and Company, 
Cambridge. 


PREFACE 


TO THE SECOND EDITION 


Much to the author’s surprise, and (if he may say 
bo without additional offence) considerably to his 
amusement, he finds that his sketch of official life, 
mtroductory to The Scarlet Letter, has created 
an unprecedented excitement in the respectable 
community immediately around him. It could 
hardly have been more violent, indeed, had he 
burned down the Custom-House, and quenched its 
last smoking ember in the blood of a certain ven- 
erable personage, against whom he is supposed to 
cheiish a peculiar malevolence. As the public 
disapprobation would weigh very heavily on him, 
were he conscious of deserving it, the author begs 
leave to say, that he has carefully read over the in- 
troductory pages, with a purpose to alter or expunge 
whatever might be found amiss, and to make the 
best reparation in his power for the atrocities of 
which he has been adjudged guilty. But it 
appears to him, that the only remarkable features 
of the sketch are its frank and genuine good- 


PREFACE. 


iY 

humor, and the general accuracy with which ne 
has conveyed his sincere impressions of the char- 
acters therein described. As to enmity, or ill- 
feeling of any kind, personal or political, he 
utterly disclaims such motives. The sketch 
might, perhaps, have been wholly omitted, with- 
out loss to the public or detriment to the book; 
but, having undertaken to write it, he conceives 
that it could not have been done in a better or a 
kindlier spirit, nor, so far as his abilities availed, 
with a livelier effect of truth. 

The author is constrained, therefore, tc repub- 
lish his introductory sketch without the wmge of 
a word. 

Salim, March 30, 18M 


THE SCARLET LETTER, 


A ROMANCE. 














































































































CONTENTS 


fMI 

The Custom House. — Introductory ........ . l 


I. — The Prison-door .53 

II. — The Market-place 55 

III. — The Recognition 68 

IV. — The Interview 80 

V. — Hester at her Needle 89 

VI. — Pearl 101 

VII. — The Governor’s Hall .114 

VIII. — The Elf -Child and the Minister ..... 123 

IX. — The Leech .135 

X. — The Leech and his Patient 148 

XI. — The Interior or a Heart 161 

XII. — The Minister’s Vigil . . 170 

XIII. — Another View of Hester 184 

XIV. — Hester and the Physician 195 

XV. — Hester and Pearl ............. 204 

XVI. — A Forest Walk 213 

XVII. — The Pastor and his Parishioner 221 

XVHI. — A Flood of Sunshine 233 

XIX. — The Child at the Briok side >241 

A* 


CONTENTS. 


S' 

PAOE 

XX — The Minister in a Maze . 2&J 

XXL — The New England Holiday .264 

XXII. — The Procession . 276 

XXIII. — The Revelation of the Scarlet Letter . . . 289 
XXIV. — Conclusion - . 


THE CUSTOM-HOUSE. 


INTRODUCTORY TO “ THE SCARLET LETTER. ’ 


It is a little remarkable, that — though disinclined to 
talk overmuch of myself and my affairs at the fireside, 
and to my personal friends — an autobiographical im- 
pulse should twice in my life have taken possession of 
me, in addressing the public. The first time was three 
or four years since, when 1 favored the reader — inex- 
cusably, and for no earthly reason, that either the in- 
dulgent reader or the intrusive author could imagine — 
with a description of my way of life in the deep qui- 
etude of an Old Manse. And i ow — because, beyond 
my deserts, I was happy enougi. to find a listener or 
two on the former occasion — I again seize the public by 
the button, and talk of my three years’ experience in a 
Custom-House. The example of the famous “P. P., 
Clerk of this Parish,” was never more faithfully fol- 
lowed. The truth seems to be, however, that, when he 
casts his leaves forth upon the wind, the author addresses, 
not the many who will fling aside his volume, or never 
take it up, but the few who will understand him, better 
than most of his schoolmates or litemates. Some au* 
jhors, indeed, do far more than this, and indulge tnem- 
1 


a 


THE SCARLET LEI TER. 


stives in such confidential depths of revelation as could 
fittingly be addressed, only and exclusively, to the one 
heart and mind . of perfect sympathy ; as if the printed 
book, thrown at large on the wide world, were certain to 
find out the divided segment of the writer’s own nature, 
and complete his circle of existence by bringing him into 
communion with it. It is scarcely decorous, however, 
to speak all, even where we speak impersonally. But, 
as thoughts are frozen and utterance benumbed, unless 
the speaker stand in some true relation with his au- 
dience, it may be pardonable to imagine that a friend, 
a kind and apprehensive, though not the closest friend, 
is listening to our talk ; and then, a native reserve being 
thawed by this genial consciousness, we may prate of 
the circumstances that lie around us, and even of ourself, 
but still keep the inmost Me behind its veil. To this 
extent, and within these limits, an author, methinks, may 
be autobiographical, without violating either the reader’s 
rights or his own. 

It will be seen, likewise, that this Custom-House 
sketch has a certain propriety, of a kind always recog- 
nized in literature, as explaining how a large portion of 
the following pages came into my possession, and as 
offering proofs of the authenticity of a narrative therein 
contained. This, in fact, — a desire to put myself in 
my true position as editor, or very little more, of the 
most prolix among the tales that make up my volume, 
— 'his, and no other, is my true reason for assuming a 
personal relation with the public. In accomplishing the 
main purpose, it has appeared allowable, by a few extra 
touches, to give a faint representation of a mode of life 
not heretofore described, together with some of the chai 


THE CUSTOM-HOUSE. 


3 


meters that move in it, among whom the authoi hap* 
pened to make one. 

In my native town of Salem, at the head of what, 
half a century ago, in the days of old King Derby, was 
a bustling wharf, — but which is now burdened with 
decayed wooden warehouses, and exhibits few or no 
symptoms of commercial life ; except, perhaps, a bark or 
brig, half-way down its melancholy length, discharging 
hides ; or, nearer at hand, a Nova Scotia schooner, pitch- 
ing out her cargo of fire-wood, — at the head, I say, 
of this dilapidated wharf, which the tide often overflows, 
and along which, at the base and in the rear of the row 
of buildings, the track of many languid years is seen in 
a border of unthrifty grass, — here, with a view from its 
front windows adown this not very enlivening prospect, 
and thence across the harbor, stands a spacious edifice 
of brick. From the loftiest point of its roof, during pre- 
cisely three and a half hours of each forenoon, floats or 
droops, in breeze or calm, the banner of the republic } 
but with the thirteen stripes turned vertically, instead of 
horizontally, and thus indicating that a civil, and not a 
military post of Uncle Sam’s government, is here estab- 
lished. Its front is ornamented with a portico of half a 
dozen wooden pillars, supporting a balcony, beneath 
which a flight of wide granite steps descends towards the 
street. Over the entrance hovers an enormous specimen 
of the American eagle, with outspread wings, a shield 
before her breast, and, if I recollect aright, a bunch of 
intermingled thunderbolts and barbed arrows in each 
claw. With the customary infirmity of temper that 
characterizes this unhappy fowl, she appears, by th« 


1 


THE SCARLET LETTER. 


fierceness of her beak and eye, and the general trucu 
lency of her attitude, to threaten mischief to the inoffen- 
sive community; and especially to warn all citizens, 
careful of their safety, against intruding on the premises 
which she overshadows with her wings. Nevertheless, 
vixenly as she looks, many people are seeking, at this 
very moment, to shelter themselves under the wing of 
the federal eagle ; imagining, I presume, that her bosom 
has all the softness and snugness of an eider-down pil- 
low. But she has no great tenderness, even in her best 
of moods, and, sooner or later, — oftener soon than late, 

— is apt to fling off her nestlings, with a scratch of her 
claw, a dab of her beak, or a rankling wound from her 
barbed a; rows. 

The pavement round about the above-described edifice 

— which we may as well name at once as the Custom- 
House of the port — has grass enough growing in its 
chinks to show that it has not, of late days, been worn 
by any multitudinous resort of business. In some months 
of the year, however, there often chances a forenoon when 
affairs move onward with a livelier tread. Such occa- 
sions might remind the elderly citizen of that period, 
before the last war with England, when Salem was a 
port by itself ; not scorned, as she is now, by her own 
merchants and ship-owners, who permit her wharves to 
crumble to ruin, while their ventures go to swell, need- 
lessly and imperceptibly, the mighty flood of commerce, 
at New York or Boston. On some such morning, when 
three or four vessels happen to have arrived at once, — 
usually from Africa or South America, — or to be on the 
verge of their departure thitherward, there is a sound 
of frequent feet, parsing briskly rp and down thv» granite 


5 


THE CUSTOM-HOUSE. 

steps. Here, before his own wife has greeted him, you 
may greet the sea- flushed ship-master, just in port, with 
his vessel’s papers under his arm, in a tarnished tin box. 
Here, too, comes his owner, cheerful or sombre, gracious 
or in the sulks, accordingly as his scheme of the now 
accomplished voyage has been realized in merchandise 
that will readily be turned to gold, or has buried him 
under a bulk of incommodities, such as nobody wil. care 
to rid him of Here, likewise, — the germ of the wrin- 
kle-browed, grizzly-bearded, care-worn merchant, — we 
have the smart young clerk, who gets the taste of traffic 
as a wolf-cub does of blood, and already sends adven- 
tures in his master’s ships, when he had better be sailing 
mimic-boats upon a mill-pond. Another figure in the 
scene is the outward-bound sailor j in quest of a protec- 
tion ; or the recently arrived one, pale and feeble, seek- 
ing a passport to the hospital. Nor must we forget tb - 
captains of the rusty little schooners that bring fire-wouv 
from the British provinces ; a rough-looking set of tar- 
paulins, without the alertness of the Yankee aspect, but 
contributing an item of no slight importance to our 
decaying trade. 

Cluster all these individuals together, as they some- 
times were, with other miscellaneous ones to diversify 
the group, and, for the time being, it made the Custom- 
House a stirring scene. More frequently, however, on 
ascending the steps, you would discern — in the entry, 
if it were summer time, or in their appropriate rooms, 
if wintry or inclement weather — a row of venerable 
figures, sitting in old-fashioned chairs, which were tipped 
on their hind legs back against the wall. Oftentimes 
they were asleep but occasionally might be heard talk- 


6 


THE SCARLET LETTER. 


\ng together, !n voices between speech and a snore, and 
with that lack of energy that distinguishes the occupants 
of alms-houses, and all other human beings who depend 
for subsistence on charity, on monopolized labor, or any- 
thing else but their own independent exertions. These 
old gentlemen — seated, like Matthew, at the receipt of 
customs, but not very liable to be summoned thence, 
like him, for apostolic errands — were Custom-House 
officers. 

Furthermore, on the left hand as you enter the front 
door, is a certain room or office, about fifteen feet square, 
and of a lofty height ; with two of its arched windows 
commanding a view of the aforesaid dilapidated wharf, 
and the third looking across a narrow lane, and along a 
portion of Derby-street. All three give glimpses of the 
shops of grocers, block-makers, slop-sellers, and ship- 
chandlers ; around the doors of which are generally to 
be seen, laughing and gossiping, clusters of old salts, 
and such other wharf-rats as haunt the Wapping of a 
seaport. The room itself is cobwebbed, and dingy with 
old paint ; its floor is strewn with gray sand, in a 
fashion that has elsewhere fallen into long disuse ; and 
it is easy to conclude, from the general slovenliness of 
the place, that this is a sanctuary into which woman- 
kind, with her tools of magic, the broom and mop, has 
very infrequent access. In the way of furniture, there 
is i stove with a voluminous funnel ; an old pine desk, 
with a three-legged stool beside it ; two or three wooden- 
bottom chairs, exceedingly decrepit and infirm ; and — 
not to forget the library — on some shelves, a score oj 
two oi volumes of the Acts of Congress, and a bulky 
Digest of the Revenue Laws. A tin pipe ascends through 


THE CDSTOM-UOUSE. 


1 


the ceiling, and forms a medium of vocal communication 
with other parts of the edifice. And here, some six 
montns ago, — pacing from corner to corner, or lounging 
on the long-legged stool, with his elbow on the desk, 
and his eyes wandering up and down the columnj of 
the morning newspaper, — you might have recognized, 
honored reader, the same individual who* welcomed you 
into his cheery little study, where the sunshine glim- 
mered so pleasantly through the willow branches, on the 
western side of the Old Manse. But now. should you 
go thither to seek him, you would inquire in vain for the 
Locofoco Surveyor. The besom of reform has swept 
him out of office ; and a worthier successor wears his 
dignity, and pockets his emoluments. 

This old town of Salem — my native place, though 1 
have dwelt much away from it, both in boyhood and 
maturer years — possesses, or did possess, a hold on my 
affections, the force of which I have never realized dur- 
ing my seasons of actual residence here. Indeed, so far 
ae its physical aspect is concerned, with its flat, unvaried 
surface, covered chiefly with wooden houses, few or none 
of which pretend to architectural beauty, — its irregu- 
larity, which is neither picturesque nor quaint, but only 
tame, — its long and lazy street, lounging wearisomely 
through the whole extent of the peninsula, with Gallows 
Hill and New Guinea at one end, and a view of the 
alms-house at the other, — such being the features of 
my native town, it would be quite as reasonable to form 
a sentimental attachment to a disarranged checker-board. 
And yet, though invariably happiest elsewhere, there is 
within me a feeling for old Salem, which, in lack of a 
better phrase, I must be content to call affection. The 


8 


THE SCARLET LETTER. 


sentiment is probably assignable to tbe deep ana aged 
roots which my family has struck into the soil. It is 
now nearly two centuries and a quarter since the origi- 
nal Briton, the earliest emigrant of my name, made his 
appearance in the wild and forest-bordered settlement, 
which has since become a city. And here his descend- 
ants have been born and died, and have mingled their 
earthy substance with the soil ; until no small portion 
of it must necessarily be akin to the mortal frame where- 
with, for a little while, I walk the streets. In part, there- 
fore, the attachment which I speak of is the mere sensu- 
ous sympathy of dust for dust. Few of my countrymen 
can know what it is ; nor, as frequent transplantation is 
perhaps better for the stock, need they consider it desir- 
nble to know. 

But the sentiment has likewise its moral quality. The 
figure of that first ancestor, invested by family tradition 
with a dim and dusky grandeur, was present to my boy- 
ish imagination, as far back as I can remember. It still 
haunts me, and induces a sort of home-feeling with the 
past, which I scarcely claim in reference to the present 
phase of the town. I seem to have a stronger claim to 
jl residence here on account of this grave, bearded, sable- 
cloaked and steeple-crowned progenitor, — who came so 
early, with his Bible and his sword, and trode the un- 
worn street with such a stately port, and made so large 
a figure, as a man of war and peace, — a stronger claim 
than for myself, whose name is seldom heard and my 
faca hardly known. He was a soldier, legislator, judge* 
he was a ruler in the Church : he had all the Puritanic 
traits, both good and evil. He was likewise a bettel 
persecutor , as witness the Quakers, whc have remem* 


THE CUSTOM-11 JUSE. 


9 


bered him in their histories, and relate an incident of 
bis hard severity towards a woman of their sect, which 
will last longer, it is to be feared, than any record of his 
better deeds, although these w r ere many. His son, too, 
inherited the persecuting spirit, and made himself so 
conspicuous in the martyrdom of the witches, that theii 
blood may fairly be said to have left a stain upon him. 
So deep a stain, indeed, that his old dry bones, in the 
Charter-street burial-ground, must still retain it, if they 
have not crumbled utterly to dust ! I know not whether 
these ancestors of mine bethought themselves to repent, 
and ask pardon of heaven for their cruelties ; or whether 
they are now groaning under the heavy consequences 
of them, in another state of being. At all events, I, the 
present writer, as their representative, hereby take shame 
upon myself for their sakes, and pray that any curse 
incurred by them — as 1 have heard, and as the dreary 
and unprosperous condition of the race, for many a long 
year back, would argue to exist — may be now and 
henceforth removed. 

Doubtless, however, either of these stem and black 
browed Puritans would have thought it quite a suffi- 
cient retribution for his sins, that, after so Jong a lapse 
of years, the old trunk of the family tree, with so much 
venerable moss upon it, should have borne, as its top- 
most bough, an idler like myself. No aim, that I have 
ever cherished, would they recognize as laudable; no 
success of mine — if my life, beyond its domestic scope, 
had ever been brightened by success — would they deem 
otherwise than worthless, if not positively disgraceful. 
“ What is he ? ” murmurs one gray shadow of my fore* 
fatheis to the other. “A writer of story-books! What 


10 


THE SCARLET LETTER. 


kind of a business in life, — what mode of glorifying 
God, or being serviceable to mankind in his day and 
generation, — may that be ? Why, the degenerate fel- 
iow might as well have been a fiddler ! ” Such are the 
compliments bandied between my great-grandsires and 
myself, across the gulf of time ! And yet, let them scorn 
me as they will, strong traits of their nature have inter- 
twined themselves with mine. 

Planted deep, in the townTearliest infancy and child- 
hood, by these two earnest and energetic men, the race 
has ever since subsisted here ; always, too, in respecta- 
bility ; never, so far as I have known, disgraced by a 
single unworthy member ; but seldom or never, on the 
other hand, after the first two generations, performing 
any memorable deed, or so much as putting forward a 
claim to public notice. Gradually, they have sunk 
almost, out of sight ; as old houses, here and there about 
.he streets, get covered half-way to the eaves by the 
accumulation of new soil. From father to son, for above 
a hundred years, they followed the sea ; a gray-headed 
shipmaster, in each generation, retiring from the quarter- 
deck to the homestead, while a boy of fourteen took the 
hereditary place before the mast, confronting the salt 
spray and the gale, which had blustered against his sire 
and grandsire. The boy, also, m due time, passed 
from the forecastle to the cabin, spent a tempestuous 
manhood, and returned from his world-wanderings, to 
grow old, and die, and mingle his dust with the natal 
earth. This long connection of a family with one spot, 
as its place of birth and burial, creates a kindred between 
the human being and the locality, quite independent of 
any charm in the scenery or moral circumstances thv 


THE CUSTOM-HOUSE. 


surround him. It is not lcrve, but instinct. Tin? new 
inhabitant — who came himself from a foreign land, oi 
whose father or grandfather came — has little claim 10 
Oo called a Salemite ; he has no conception of the oyster- 
tik* 1 tenacity with which an old settler, over whom his 
third century is creeping, clings to the spot wht re his 
successive generations have been imbedded. It is no 
matter that the place is joyless for him ; that he is weary 
of the oil wooden houses, the mud and dust, the dead 
level of site and sentiment, the chill east wind, and the 
chillest of social atmospheres ; — all these, and whatever 
faults besides he may see or imagine, are nothing to the 
purpose. The spell survives, and just as powerfully as 
if the natal spot were an earthly paradise. So has it 
been in my case. I felt it almost as a destiny to make 
Salem my home ; so that the mould of features and cast 
of character which had all along been familiar here — 
ever, as one representative of the race lay down in his 
grave, another assuming, as it were, his sentry-march 
along the main street — might still in my little day be 
<>een and recognized in the old town. Nevertheless, this 
very sentiment is an evidence that the connection, which 
has become an unhealthy one, should at least be severed 
Human nature will not flourish, any more than a potato, 
if it be planted and replanted, for too long a series of 
generations, in the same worn-out soil. My children 
nave had other birthplaces, and, so far as their fortunes 
may be within my control, shall strike their roots into 
unaccustomed earth. 

On emerging from the Old Manse, it was chiefly this 
strange, iudolent, unjoyous attachment for my native 
town, that brought me to fill a place in Uncle Sam’> 


12 


THE SCARLET LETTER. 


brick edifice, when I might as well, or better, have gone 
somewhere else. My doom was on me. It was not the 
first time, nor the second, that I had gone away, — as it 
seemed, permanently, — but yet returned, .ike the bad 
half-penny; or as if Salem were for me the inevitable 
centre of the universe. So, one fine morning, I ascended 
the flight of granite steps, with the President’s commis- 
sion in my pocket, and was introduced to the corps of 
gentlemen who were to aid me in my weighty responsi- 
bility, as chief executive officer of the Custom-House. 

I doubt greatly — or, rather, I do not doubt at all — 
whether any public functionary of the United States, 
either in the civil or military line, has ever had such a 
patriarchal body of veterans under his orders as myself. 
The whereabouts of the Oldest Inhabitant was at once 
settled, when I looked at them. For upwards of twenty 
years before this epoch, the independent position of the 
Collector had kept the Salem Custom-House out of the 
whirlpool of political vicissitude, which makes the tenure 
of office generally so fragile. A soldier, — New Eng- 
land’s most distinguished soldier, — he stood firmly on 
the pedestal of his gallant services ; and, himself secure 
in the wise liberality of the successive administrations 
through which he had held office, he had been the safety 
of his subordinates in many an hour of danger and heart- 
quake. General Miller was radically conservative; a 
man over whose kindly nature habit had no slight influ- 
ence ; attaching himself strongly to familiar faces, and 
with difficulty moved to change, even when change 
might have brought unquestionable improvement. Thus, 
on taking charge of my department, I found few but aged 
They were ancient sea-capta ns, for the most part 


THE CUSTOM-HOUSE. 


13 


»vho. after being tost on every sea, and standing up stur- 
dily against life’s tempestuous blast, had finally drifted 
into this quiet nook ; where, w ith. little to disturb them, 
except the periodical terrors of a Presidential election, 
they one and all acquired a new lease of existence. 
Though by no means less liable than their fellow-men 
to age and infirmity, tney had evidently some talisman 
or other that kept death at bay. Two or three of their 
number, as I was assured, being gouty and rheumatic, 
or perhaps bed-ridden, never dreamed of making their 
appearance at the Custom-House, during a large part of 
the year ; but, after a torpid winter, would creep out 
into the warm sunshine of May or June, go lazily about 
what they termed duty, and, at their own leisure and 
convenience, betake themselves to bed again. I must 
plead guilty to the charge of abbreviating the official 
breath of more than one of these venerable servants of 
the republic. They were allowed, on my representation, 
to rest from their arduous labors, and soon afterwards 
— as if their sole principle of life had been zeal for their 
country’s service; as I verily believe it was — with- 
drew to a better world. It is a pious consolation to me, 
that, through my interference, a sufficient space was 
allowed them for repentance of the evil and corrupt prac- 
tices, into which, as a matter of course, every Custom- 
House officer must be supposed to fall. Neither the 
front nor the back entrance of the Custom-House opens 
on the road to Paradise. 

The greater part of my officers were Whigs. It was 
well for their venerable brotherhood that the new Sur- 
veyor was not a politician, and though a faithful Demo- 
crat in principle, neither received nor held bis office 


14 


THE SCARLET LETTER. 


with any reference to political services. Han it been 
otherwise. — had an active politician been put into this 
influential post, to assume the easy task of making 
head against a Whig Collector, whose infirmities with- 
held him from the personal administration of his office, 
— hardly a man of the old corps would have drawn^ 
the breath of official life, within a month after the exter- 
minating angel had come up the Custom-House steps. 
According to the received code in such matters, it 
would have been nothing short of duty, in a politician, 
to bring every one of those white heads under the axe 
of the guillotine. It was plain enough to discern, 
that the old fellows dreaded some such discourtesy at 
my hands. It pained, and at the same time amused 
me, to behold the terrors that attended my advent ; to 
see a furrowed cheek, weather-beaten by half' a century 
of storm, turn ashy pale at the glance of so harmless an 
individual as myself; to detect, as one or another 
addressed me, the tremor of a voice, which, in long-past 
lays, had been wont to bellow through a speaking- 
trumpet, hoarsely enough to frighten Boreas himself to 
silence. They knew, these excellent old persons, that, 
by all established rule, — and, as regarded some of 
them, weighed by their own lack of efficiency for busi- 
ness, — they ought to have given place to younger men, 
more orthodox in politics, and altogether fatcr than 
themselves to serve our common Uncle. I knew it, too, 
but could never quite find in my heart to act upon the 
knowledge. Much and deservedly to my own discredit, 
therefore, and considerably to the detriment of my 
official conscience, they continued, during my incum- 
bency, to creep about the wharves, and loiter up and 


run CUS1 jN-hUUSE. 


15 


down the Custom-House steps. They spent a good 
deal of time, also, asleep in their accustomed corners, 
with their chairs tilted back against the wall ; awaking, 
however, once or twice in a forenoon, to bore one 
another with the several thousandth repetition of old 
sea-stories, and mouldy jokes, that had grown to be 
pass-words and countersigns among them. 

The discovery was soon made, I imagine, that the 
new Surveyor had no great harm in him. So, with 
lightsome hearts, and the happy consciousness of being 
usefully employed, — in their own behalf, at least, if 
not for our beloved country, — these good old gentlemen 
went through the various formalities of office. Saga- 
ciously, under their spectacles, did they peep into the 
holds of vessels ! Mighty was their fuss about little 
matters, and marvellous, sometimes, the obtuseness that 
allowed greater ones to slip between their fingers ! 
Whenever such a mischance occurred, — when a wagon- 
load of valuable merchandise had been smuggled ashore, 
at noonday, perhaps, and directly beneath their unsus- 
picious noses, — nothing could exceed the vigilance and 
alacrity with which they proceeded to lock, and double- 
lock, and secure with tape and sealing-wax, all the 
avenues of the delinquent vessel. Instead of a repri- 
mand for their previous negligence, the case seemed 
rather to require an eulogium on their praiseworthy 
caution, after the mischief had happened; a grateful 
recognition of the promptitude of their zeal, the moment 
that there was no longer any remedy. 

Unless people are more than commonly disagreeable, 
it is my foolish habit to contract a kindness for them. 
The better part of my companion’s character, if it have 


16 


THE SCARLET LETTER. 


a better part, is that which usually comes uppermost 
in my regard, and forms the type whereby I recognize 
the man. As most of these old Custom-House officers 
nad good traits, and as my position in reference to them, 
being paternal and protective, was favorable to the 
growth of friendly sentiments, I soon grew to like them 
all. It was pleasant, in the summer forenoons, — when 
the fervent heat, that almost liquefied the rest of the 
human family, merely communicated a genial warmth 
to their half-torpid systems, — it was pleasant to hear 
them chatting in the back entry, a row of them all 
tipped against the wall, as usual ; while the frozen wit- 
ticisms of past generations were thawed out, and came 
bubbling with laughter from their lips. Externally, the 
jollity of aged men has much in common with the mirth 
of children ; the intellect, any more than a deep sense 
of humor, has little to do with the matter; it is, with 
both, a gleam that plays upon the surface, and imparts a 
sunny and cheery aspect alike to the green branch, and 
gray, mouldering trunk. In one case, however, it is 
real sunshine ; in the other, it more resembles the phos- 
phorescent glow of decaying wood. 

It would be sad injustice, the reader must understand, 
to represent all my excellent old friends as in their 
dotage. In the first place, my coadjutors were nGt 
invariably old; there were men among them in theii 
strength and prime, of marked ability and energy, and 
altogether superior to the sluggish and dependent mode 
of life on which their evil stars had cast them. Then, 
moreover, the white locks of age were sometimes found 
to be the thatch of an intellectual tenement in good 
repair. But, as respects the majority of my co~ps cf 


TUP CUSTOM-HOUSE. 


n 


veterans, there will be no wrong done, if I characterize 
them generally as a set of wearisome old souls, who had 
gathered nothing worth preservation from their varied 
experience of life. They seemed to have flung away all 
the golden grain of practical wisdom, which they had 
enjoyed so many opportunities of harvesting, and most 
•rarefully to have stored their memories with the husks 
They spoke with far more interest and unction of then 
morning’s breakfast, or yesterday’s, to-day’s, or to-mor 
row's dinner, than of the shipwreck of forty or fifty 
fears ago, and all the world’s wonders which they had 
/vitnessed with their youthful eyes. 

The father of the Custom-House — the patriarch, not 
only of this little squad of officials, but, I am bold to say, 
of the respectable body of tide-waiters all over the 
United States — was a certain permanent Inspector. 
He might truly be termed a legitimate son of the 
revenue system, dyed in the wool, or, rather, born in. the 
purple; since his sire, a Revolutionary colonel, and 
formerly collector of the port, had created an office for 
him, and appointed him to fill it, at a period of the early 
a^es which few living men can now remember. This 
Inspector, when I first knew him, was a man of four- 
score years, or thereabouts, and certainly one of the 
most wonderful specimens of winter-green that you 
would be likely to discover in a lifetime’s search. With 
his florid cheek, his compact figure, smartly arrayed iu 
a bright-buttoned blue coat, his brisk and vigorous step, 
and his hale and hearty aspect, altogether he seemed — 
not young, indeed — but a kind of new contrivance of 
Mother Nature in the shape of man, whom age and 
infirmity had no business to touch. His voice and 
<2 


18 


THE SCARLET LETTER. 


laugh, which perpetually reechoed through the Custom 
House, had nothing of the tremulous quaver and cackle 
of an old man’s utterance; they came strutting out of 
his lungs, like the crow of a cock, or the blast of a 
clarion. Looking at him merely as an animal, — and 
there was very little else to look at, — he was a most 
satisfactory object, from the thorough healthfulness and 
wholesomeness of his system, and his capacity, at that 
extreme age, to enjoy all, or nearly all, the delights 
which he had ever aimed at, or conceived of. The 
careless security of his life in the Custom-House, on a 
regular income, and with but slight and infrequent 
apprehensions of removal, had no doubt contributed to 
make time pass lightly over him. The original and 
more potent causes, however, lay in the rare perfection 
of his animal nature, the moderate proportion of intel- 
lect, and the very trifling admixture of moral and 
spiritual ingredients ; these latter qualities, indeed, 
being in barely enough measure to keep the old gentle- 
man from walking on all-fours. He possessed no power 
of thought, no depth of feeling, no troublesome sensibil- 
ities ; nothing, in short, but a few commonplace instincts, 
which, aided by the cheerful temper that grew inevitably 
out of his physical well-being, did duty very respectably, 
and to general acceptance, in lieu of a heart. He had 
been the husband of three wives, all long since dead ; 
the father of twenty children, most of whom, at every 
age of childhood or maturity, ha likewise returned to 
dust. Here, one would suppose, might have been sor- 
row enough to imbue the sunniest disposition, through 
and through, with a sable tingfc. Not so with our old 
Inspector ! One brief sigh sufficed to carry off the cntre 


THE CUSTOM-HOUSE. 


]& 

burden of these dismal reminiscences. The next mo- 
ment, lie was as ready for sport as any unbreeciied 
infant; far readier than the Collector’s junior clerk, who, 
at nineteen years, was much the elder and graver man 
of the two. 

I used to watch and study this patriarchal personage 
with, I think, livelier curiosity, than any other form of 
humanity there presented to my notice. He was, in 
truth, a rare phenomenon ; so perfect, in one point of 
view,; so shallow, so delusive, so impalpable, such an 
absolute nonentity, in every other. My conclusion was 
that he had no soul, no heart, no mind ; nothing, as I 
have already said, but instincts: and yet, withal, so 
cunningly had the few materials of his character been 
put together, that there was no painful perception of 
deficiency, but, on my part, an entire contentment with 
what I found in him. It might be difficult — and it 
was so — to conceive how he should exist hereafter, so 
earthly and sensuous did he seem ; but surely his exist- 
ence here, admitting that it was to terminate with his 
last breath, had been not unkindly given; with no 
higher moral responsibilities than the beasts of the field, 
but with a larger scope of enjoyment than theirs, and 
with all their blessed immunity from the dreariness and 
duskiness of age. 

One point, in which he had vastly the advantage over 
his four-footed brethren, was his ability to recollect the 
good dinners which it had made no small portion of the 
happiness of his life to eat. His gourmandism was a 
highly agreeable trait ; and to hear him talk of roast- 
meat was as appetizing as a pickle or an oyster. As 
he possessed 10 higher attribute, and neither sacrificed 


20 


THE SCARLET LETTER. 


nor vitiated any spiritual endowment by devoting all 
his energies ana ingenuities to subserve the delight and 
profit of his maw, it always pleased and satisfied me to 
hear him expatiate on fish, poultry, and butcher’s meat, 
and the most eligible methods of preparing them for 
the table. His reminiscences of good cheer, however 
ancient the date of the actual banquet, seemed to bring 
the savor of pig or turkey under one’s very nostrils. 
There were flavors on his palate, that had lingered 
there not less than sixty or seventy years, and were still 
apparently as fresh as that of the mutton-chop which he 
had just devoured for his breakfast. I have heard him 
smack his lips over dinners, every guest at which, 
except himself, had long been food for worms. It was 
marvellous to observe how the ghosts of bygone meals 
were continually rising up before him ; not in anger ot 
retribution, but as if grateful for his former appreciation 
and seeking to repudiate an endless series of enjoyment, 
at once shadowy and sensual. A tender-loin of beef, a 
hind-quarter of veal, a spare-rib of pork, a particular 
chicken, or a remarkably praiseworthy turkey, which 
had perhaps adorned his board in the days of the elder 
Adams, would be remembered ; while all the subsequent 
experience of our race, and all the events that bright- 
ened or darkened his individual career, had gone over 
him with as little permanent effect as the passing 
breeze. The chief tragic event of the old man’s life, so 
far as I cou.d judge, was his mishap with a certain 
goose, which lived and died some twenty or forty years 
ago ; a goose of most promising figure, but which, at 
table, proved so inveterately tough that the carving-knife 


THE CUSTOM-HOUSE. 


2\ 

vrould make no Impression on its carcass, and it could 
only be divided with an axe and handsaw. 

But it is time to quit this sketch ; on which, however 
[ should be glad to dwell at considerably more length 
because, of all men whom I have ever known, this indi 
vidual was fittest to be a Custom-House officer. Most 
persons, owing to causes which I may not have space ic 
hint at, suffer moral detriment from this peculiar mode 
of life. The old Inspector was incapable of it, and, 
were he to continue in office to the end of time, would 
be just as good as he was then, and sit down to dinner 
with just as good an appetite. 

There is one likeness, without which my gallery of 
Custom-House portraits would be strangely incomplete ; 
but which my comparatively few opportunities for obser- 
vation enable me to sketch only in the merest outline. 
It is that of the Collector, our gallant old Genera], who, 
after his brilliant military service, subsequently to which 
he had ruled over a wild Western territory, had come 
hither, twenty years before, to spend the decline of his 
varied and honorable life. The brave soldier had already 
numbered, nearly or quite, his threescore years and ten, 
and was pursuing the remainder of his earthly march, 
burdened with infirmities which even the martial music 
of his own spirit-stirring recollections could do littla 
towards lightening. The step was palsied now, th»J 
had been foremost in the charge. It was only with the 
assistance of a servant, and by leanimr his hand heaviiv 
on the iron balustrade, that he could slowlv and pain- 
fully ascend the Custom-House stens. and, with a toil- 
some progress across the floor, attain his customary chan 
6eside the fireplace. There bp to sit. ga7mg wito 


THE SCARLET LETTER. 


22 

a somewhat dim serenity of aspect at the figures thai 
came and went ; amid the rustle of papers, the adminis- 
tering of oaths, the discussion of business, and the casual 
talk of the office ; all which sounds and circumstances 
seemed but indistinctly to impress his senses, and hardly 
to make then way into his inner sphere of contempla- 
tion. His countenance, in this repose, was mild ana 
kindly, if his notice was sought, an expression of cour- 
tesy and interest gleamed out upon his features ; prov- 
ing that there was light within him, and that it was only 
the outward medium of the intellectual lamp that ob- 
structed the rays in their passage. The closer you pen- 
etrated to the substance of his mind, the sounder it 
appeared. When no longer called upon to speak, or 
listen, either of which operations cost him an evident 
effort, his face would briefly subside into its former not 
uncheerful quietude. It was not painful to behold this 
look ; for, though dim, it had not the imbecility of de- 
caying age. The framework of his nature, originally 
strong and massive, w T as not yet crumbled into ruin. 

To observe and define his character, however, under 
such disadvantages, was as difficult a task as to trace 
out and build up anew, in imagination, an old fortress, 
like Ticonderoga, from a view of its gray and broken 
ruins. Here and there, perchance, the walls may remain 
almost complete , but elsewhere may be only a shape- 
less mound, cumbrous with its very strength, and over- 
grown, through long years of peace and neglect, with 
grass and alien weeds. 

Nevertheless, looking at the old warrior with affec- 
tion, — for, slight as was the communication between 
us, my feeling towards him, like that of all bipeds and 


THE CUSTOM-HOUSli. 




quadrupeds who knew him, might not irnpropi rly be 
tenned so, — I could discern the main points of his 
portrait. It was marked with the noble and heroic 
qualities which showed it to be not by a mere accident, 
but of good right, that he had won a distinguished name. 
His spirit could never, I conceive, have been character- 
ized by an uneasy activity ; it must, at any period of his 
life, have required an impulse to set him in motion; 
but, once stirred uj , with obstacles to overcome, and an 
adequate object to be attained, it was not in the man to 
give out or fail. The heat that had formerly pervaded 
his nature, and which was not yet extinct, was never of 
the kind that flashes and flickers in a blaze ; but, rather, 
a deep, red glow, as of iron in a furnace. Weight, solid** 
ity, firmness ; this was the expression of his repose, even 
in such decay as had crept untimely over him, at the 
period of which I speak. But I could imagine, even 
then, that, under some excitement which should go 
deeply into his consciousness, — roused by a trumpet- 
peal, loud enough to awaken all of his energies that were 
not dead, but only slumbering, — he was yet capable of 
flinging off his infirmities like a sick man’s gown, drop- 
ping the staff of age to seize a battle-sword, and starting 
up once more a warrior. And, in so intense a moment, 
his demeanor would have still been calm. Srch an ex- 
hibition, however, was but to be pictured in fancy ; not 
to be anticipated, nor desired. What I saw in nim — ** 
as evidently as the indestructible ramparts of Old Ticon- 
deroga. already cited as the most appropriate simile — 
were the features of stubborn a:ud ponderous endurance, 
which might well have amounted to obstinacy in hia 
earlier days ; of integrry, that, like most cf his other 


*4 THE SCARLET LETTER. 

endowments, lay in a somewhat heavy mass, and was 
just as unmalleable and unmanageable as a ton of iron 
ore ; and of benevolence, which, fiercely as he led the 
bayonets on at Chippewa or Fort Erie, I take to be of 
quite as genuine a stamp as what actuates any or all the 
polemical philanthropists of the age. He had slain men 
with his own hand, for aught I know , — certainly, they 
had fallen, like blades of grass at the sweep of the 
scythe, before the charge to which his spirit imparted its 
triumphant energy ; — but, be that as it might, there 
was never in his heart so much cruelty as would have 
brushed the down off a butterfly’s wing. I have not 
known the man, to whose innate kindliness I would 
more confidently make an appeal. 

Many characteristics — and those, too, which contrib- 
ute not the least forcibly to impart resemblance in a sketr.i 
— must have vanished, or been obscured, before I met 
the General. All merely graceful attributes are usually 
the most evanescent ; nor does Nature adorn the human 
ruin with blossoms of new beauty, that have their roots 
and proper nutriment only in the chinks and crevices of 
decay, as she sows wall-flowers over the ruined fortress 
of Ticonderoga. Still, even in respect of grace and 
beauty, there were points well worth noting. A ray of 
humor, now and then, would make its way through the 
veil of dim obstruction, and glimmer pleasantly upon 
our faces. A trait of native elegance, seldom seen in the 
masculine character after childhood or early youth, was 
shown in the General’s fondness for the sight and fra- 
grance of flowers. An old soldier might be supposed to 
prize only the bloody laurel on his brow; but here was 


THE CUSTOM-HOUSE. 


25 


Dne> who seemed to have a young girl’s appreciation of 
the floral tribe. 

There, beside the fireplace, the brave old General 
used to sit ; while the Surveyor — though seldom, when 
it could be avoided, taking upon himself the difficult task 
of engaging him in conversation — was fond of standing 
at a distance, and watching his quiet and almost slum- 
berous countenance. He seemed away from us, although 
we saw him but a few yards off ; remote, though we 
passed close beside his chair ; unattainable, though we 
might have stretched forth our hands and touched his 
own. It might be that he lived a more real life within 
his thoughts, than amid the unappropriate environment 
ot the Collector’s office. The evolutions of the parade ; 
the tumult of the battle ; the flourish of old, heroic mu- 
sic. heard thirty years before ; — such scenes and sounds, 
perhaps, were all alive before his intellectual sense. 
Meanwhile, the merchants and ship-masters, the spruce 
clerks and uncouth sailors, entered and departed ; the 
bustle of this commercial and Custom-House life kept 
up its little murmur round about him ; and neither with 
the men nor their affairs did the General appear to sus- 
tain the most distant relation. He was as much out of 
place as an old sword — now rusty, but which had 
flashed once in the battle’s front, and showed still a 
bright gleam along its blade — would have been, among 
the inkstands, paper-folders, and mahogany rulers, on 
the Deputy Collector’s desk. 

There was one thing that much aided me in renew- 
ing and re-creating the stalwart soldier of the Niagara 
frontier, — the man of true and simple energy. It was 
the recollection of those memorable words c f his, — 


26 


THL SCARLET LETTER 


I ’ll try, Sir ! ’* — spoken on the very verge of a dts 
perate and heroic enterprise, and breathing the soul and 
spirit of New England hardihood, comprehending all 
perils, and encountering all. If, in our countiy, valoi 
were rewarded by heraldic honor, this phrase — which 
it seems so easy to speak, but which only he, with such 
* task of danger and glory before him, has ever spoken 
— would be the best and fit test of all mottoes for the 
'General’s shield of arms. 

It contributes greatly towards a man’s moral and intei- 
>ectual health, to be brought into habits of companion- 
ship with individuals unlike himself, who care little for 
/>is puKsuitg. and whose sphere and abilities he must go 
out of him'jfdf to appreciate. The accidents of my life 
have often afforded me this advantage, but never with 
more fuhiPLs and variety than during my continuance in 
affic^. There was one man, especially, the observation 
of whose character gave me a new idea of talent. His 
gifts were emphatically those of a man o f business; 
prompt, acute, clear-minded; with an eye that saw 
th lough all perplexities, and a faculty of arrangement 
that made them vanish, as by the waving of an enchant- 
er’s wand. Bred up from boyhood in the Custom-House, 
it was his proper field of activity ; and the many intri- 
cacies of business, so harassing to the interloper, pre- 
sented themselves before him with the regularity of a 
perfectly comprehended system. In my contemplation, 
he stood as the ideal of his class. He was, indeed, the 
Custom-House in himself ; or, at all events, the main 
spring that kept its variously revolving wheels in mo- 
tion ; for, in an institution like this, where its officers are 
appointed to subserve their own profit and convenience 


VUE CUSTOM-HOC i.E. 


21 


and seldon with, a leading reference to their fitness foi 
the duty to be performed, they must perforce seek else* 
where the dexterity which is not in them. Thus, by an 
inevitable necessity, as a magnet attracts steel-filings, so 
did our man of business draw to himself the difficulties 
which everybody met with. With an easy condescen- 
sion, and kind forbearance towards our stupidity, — 
which, to his order of mind, must have seemed little 
short of crime, — would he forthwith, by the merest 
touch of his finger, make the incomprehensible as clear 
as daylight. The merchants valued him not less than 
we, his esoteric friends. His integrity was perfect ; :t 
was a law of nature with him, rather than a choice or a 
principle ; nor can it be otherwise than the main con- 
dition of an intellect so remarkably clear and accurate as 
his, to be honest and regular in the administration of 
affairs. A stain on his conscience, as to anything thal 
came within the range of his vocation, would trouble 
such a man very much in the same way, though to a far 
greater degree, than an error in the balance of an ac- 
count, or an ink-blot on the fair page of a book of record. 
Here, in a word, — and it is a rare instance in my life, — 
I had met with a person thoroughly adapted to the situ- 



ation which he held. 

Such were some of the people with whom 1 now 
found myself connected. I took it in good part, at the 
hands of Providence, that I was thrown into a position 
so little akin to my past habits ; and set myself seriously 
to gather from it whatever profit was to be had. A fter 
my fellowship of toil and impracticable schemes with 
the dreamy brethren of Brook Farm ; after living foi 
three years within the subtile influence of an intellect 


28 


THE SCARLET LETTER 


like Emerson’s; alter those wild, free days on the Assa. 
beth, indulging fantastic speculations, beside our fire ol 
fallen boughs, with Ellery Channing ; after talking with 
Thoreau about pine-trees and Indian relics, in his her- 
mitage at Walden ; after growing fastidious by sympathy 
with the classic refinement of Hillard’s culture ; after 
becoming imbued with poetic sentiment at Longfellow’s 
hearth-stone; — it was time, at length, that I should 
exercise other faculties of my nature, and nourish myself 
with food for which I had hitherto had little appetite. 
Even the old Inspector was desirable^rc? a change of 
diet, to a man who had known Alcott. I looked upon it 
as an evidence, in some measure, of a sy&tem naturally 
well balanced, and lacking no essential part of a thorough 
organization, that, with such associates to remember, I 
could mingle at once with men of altogether different 
qualities, and never murmur at the change. 

Literature, its exertions and objects, were now of little 
moment in my regard. I cared not, at this period, for 
books; they were apart from me. Nature, — except it 
were human nature, — the nature that is developed in 
earth and sky, was, in one sense, hidden from me ; and 
all the imaginative delight, wherewith it had been spirit- 
ualized, passed away out of my mind. A gift, a faculty 
if it had not departed, was suspended and inanimate 
within me. There would have been something sad, 
unutterably dreary, in all this, had 1 not been conscious 
that it lay at my own option to recall whatever was val- 
uable in the past. It might be true, indeed, that this 
was a life which could not with impunity, be lived too 
long; else, it might made me permanently other than i 
\»een without transforming me into any shape which 


THE CUSTOM-HOUoE. 




it wtuld be worth my wnile to take. But I never con- 
sidered it as other than a transitory life. There was 
always a prophetic instinct, a low whisper in niv ear, 
that, within no long period, and whenever a new change 
of custom should be essential to my good, a change 
would come. 

Meanwhile, there I was, a Surveyor of the Kevenue 
and, . o far as I have been able to understand, as good a 
Surveyor as need be. A man of thought, fancy, and 
sensibility, (had he ten times the Surveyor’s proportion 
of those qualities.) ma; , at any time, be a man of affairs, 
if he will only choose to give himself the trouble. My 
fellow-officers, and the merchants and sea-captains with 
whom my official duties brought me into any manner of 
connection, viewed me in no other light, and probably 
knew me in no other character. None of them. I pre- 
sume, had ever read a page of my inditing, or would 
have cared a fig the more for me, if they had read them 
all ; nor would it have mended the matter, in the least, 
had those same unprofitable pages been written with a 
pen like that of Burns or of Chaucer, each of whom was 
a Custom-House officer in his day, as well as I. It is a 
good lesson — though it may often be a hard one — for 
a man who has dreamed of literary fame, and of making 
for himself a rank among the world’s dignitaries by such 
means, to step aside out of the narrow circle in which 
his claims are recognized, and to find how utterly devoid 
of significance, beyond that circle, is all that he achieves, 
und all he amis at. I know not that I especiaPy needed 
the lesson, either in the way of warning or rebuke ; but, 
at any rate, I learned it thoroughly : ncr it gives me 
pleasure to reflect, did the truth, as it came heme to my 


JO 


THE SCARLET LETTER. 


perception, ever cost me a pang, or require tc oe throw* 
Dtf in a sigh. In the way of literary talk, it is true, the 
Naval Officer — an excellent fellow, who came into office 
with me ari.1 went out only a little later — would often 
engage me in a discussion about one or the other of his 
favorite topics, Napoleon or Shakspeare. The Collector’s 
junior clerk, too, — a young gentleman who, it was whis- 
pered, occasionally covered a sheet of Uncle Sam’s letter- 
paper with what (at the distance of a few yards) looked 
very much like poetry, — used now and then to speak to 
me of books, as matters with which I might possibly be 
conversant. This was my all of lettered intercourse ; 
and it was quite sufficient for my necessities. 

No longer seeking nor caring that my name should 
be blazoned abroad on title-pages, I smiled to think that 
it had now another kind of vogue. The Custom-House 
marker imprinted it, with a stencil and black paint, on 
pepper-bags, and baskets of anatto, and cigar-boxes, and 
bales of all kinds of dutiable merchandise, in testimony 
that these commodities had paid the impost, and gone 
regularly through the office. Borne on such queer vehi- 
cle of fame, a knowledge of my existence, so far as a 
name conveys it, was carried where it had never been 
before, and, I hope, will never go again. 

But the past was not dead. Once in a great while, 
the thoughts, that had seemed so vital and so active, yet 
had been put to rest so quietly, revived again. One of 
the most remarkable occasions, when the habit of by- 
gone days awoke in me, was that which brings it within 
the law of literary propriety to offer the public the sketch 
which lam now writing. 

In the second story of the Custom-House, there is r 


THE CUSTOM-HOUSE, 


31 


‘argil room, in which the brick-work and naked rafters 
have never been coverrd with panelling and plaster. 
The edifice — originally projected on a scale adapted to 
the old commercial enterprise of the port, and with an 
idea of subsequent prosperity destined never to be real- 
ized — contains far more space than its occupants know 
what to do with. This airy hall, therefore, over the 
Collector’s apartments, remains unfinished to this day* 
and, in spite of the aged cobwebs that festoon its dusky 
beams, appears still to await the labor of the carpenter 
and mason. At one end of the room, in a recess, were 
a number of barrels, piled one upon another, containing 
bundles of official documents. Large quantities of sim- 
ilar rubbish lay lumbering the floor. It was sorrowful 
to think how many days, and weeks, and months, and 
years of toil, had been wasted on these musty papers, 
which were now only an encumbrance on earth, and 
were hidden away in this forgotten corner, never more 
to be glanced at by human eyes. But, then, what reams 
of other manuscripts — filled not with the dulness of offi- 
cial formalities, but with the thought of inventive brainy 
and the rich effusion of deep hearts — had gone equally 
to oblivion ; and that, moreover, without serving a pur- 
pose in their day, as these heaped-up papers had, and — 
saddest of all — without purchasing for their writers the 
comfortable livelihood which the clerks of the Custom- 
House had gained by these worthless scratchings of the 
pen! Yet not altogether worthless, perhaps, as mate- 
rials of local history. Here, no doubt*, statistics of the 
former commerce of Salem might be discovered, and 
memorials of her princely merchants, — old King Derby, 
— old Billy Gray, — old Simon Forrester, •- and many 


32 


TIIE SCARLET LETTEK. 


another magnate in his day; whose powdered hev3, 
however, was scarcely in the tomb, before his mountain- 
pile of wealth began to dwindle. The founders of the 
greater part of the families which now compose the aris-‘ 
locracy of Salem might here be traced, from the pett> 
and obscure beginnings of their traffic, at periods gener- 
ally much posterior to the Revolution, upward to what 
their children look upon as long-established rank. 

Prior to the Revolution, there is a dearth of records , 
the earlier documents and archives of the Custom-House 
having, probably, been carried off to Halifax, when all 
the King’s officials accompanied the British army in its 
flight from Boston. It has often been a matter of regret 
with me ; for, going back, perhaps, to the days of the 
Protectorate, those papers must have contained many 
references to forgotten or remembered men, and to an- 
tique customs, which would have affected me with the 
same pleasure as when I used to pick up Indian arrow- 
heads in the field near the Old Manse. 

But, one idle and rainy day, it was my fortune to 
make a discovery of some little interest. Poking and 
burrowing into the heaped-up rubbish in the corner; 
unfolding one and another document, and reading the 
names of vessels that had long ago foundered at sea or 
rotted at the wharves, and those of merchants, never 
heard of now on ’Change, nor very readily decipherable 
on their mossy tomb-stones ; glancing at such matters 
with the saddened, weary, half-reluctant interest which 
we bestow on the corpse of dead activity, — and exerting 
my fancy, sluggish with little use, to raise up from these 
dry bones an image of the old town’s brighter aspect, 
when India was a new region, and only Salem knew 


TL.E CUSTOM-HOUSE. 


33 


(he way thither, — I chanced to lay my hand on a small 
package, carefully done up in a piece of -ancient yellow 
parchment. This envelope had the air of an official 
record of some period long past, when cleiks engrossed 
their stiff and formal ehirography on more substantial 
materials than at present. There was something about 
it that quickened an instinctive curiosity, and made me 
undo the faded red tape, that tied up the package, with 
the sense that a treasure would here be brought to light. 
Unbending the rigid folds of the parchment cover, 1 found 
it to be a commission, under the hand and seal of^Gov- 
ernor Shirley, in favor of one Jonathan Pue, as Surveyoi 
of his Majesty’s Customs for the port of Salem, in the 
Province of Massachusetts Bay. I remembered to have 
read (probably in Felt’s Annals) a notice of the decease 
of Mr. Surveyor Pue, about fourscore years ago; and 
likewise, in a newspaper of recent times, an account of 
the digging up of his remains in the little grave-yard of 
St. Peter’s Church, during the renewal of that edifice. 
Nothing, if I rightly call to mind, was left of my respected 
predecessor, save an imperfect skeleton, and some frag- 
ments of apparel, and a wig of majestic frizzle ; which, 
unlike the head that it once adorned, was in very satis- 
factory preservation. But, on examining the papers 
which the parchment commission served to envelop, 1 
found more traces of Mr. Pue’s mental part, and the in- 
terna. operations of his head, than the frizzled wig had 
contained of the venerable skull itself. 

They were documents, in short, not official, but of a 
private nature, or, at least, written in his private capacity, 
and apparently with his own hand. I could account foi 
their oeing included in the hean of Custom-Hou?" iumhii 
3 


34 


THE SCARLET LETTER. 


only by (he fact, that Mr. Pue’ death had happened sud* 
denly ; and that these papers, which he probably kept m 
his official desk, had never come to the knowledge of his 
heirs, oi were supposed to relate to the business of the 
Tevenue. On the transfer of the archives to Halifax, this 
package, proving to be of no public concern, vas left 
behind, and had remained ever since unopened. 

The ancient Surveyor — being little molested, I sup- 
pose, at that early day, with business pertaining to his 
office — seems to have devoted some of his many leisure 
hours to researches as a local antiquarian, and other 
inquisitions of a similar nature. These supplied material 
for petty activity to a mind that would otherwise have 
been eaten up with rust. A portion of his facts, by the 
by, did me good service in the preparation of the article 
entitled “ Main Street,” included in the present volume. 
The remainder may perhaps be applied to purposes 
equally valuable, hereafter; or not impossibly may be 
worked up, so far as they go, into a regular history of 
Salem, should my veneration for the natal soil ever impel 
me to so pious a task. Meanwhile, they shall be at tho 
command of any gentleman, inclined, and competent, to 
take the unprofitable labor off my hands. As a final 
disposition, I contemplate depositing them with the Essex 
Historical Society. 

But the object that most drew my attention In tne 
mysterious package, was a certain affair of fine red cloth, 
much worn and faded. There were traces about it of 
gold embroidery, which, however, was greatly frayed and 
defaced ; so that none, or very little, of the glitter was 
(eft. It had been wrought, as was easy to perceive, with 
wonderful skill of needlework; and the stitch (as I lm 


THE CUSTOM-HOUSE. 


35 


assured by ladies conversant with such mysteries) gives 
evidence of a now forgotten art, not to be recovered even 
by the process of picking out the threads. This rag of 
scarlet cloth, — for time, and wear, and a sacrilegious 
moth, had reduced it to little other than a rag, — on care- 
ful examination, assumed the shape of a letter. It was 
the capital letter A. By an accurate measurement, each 
limb proved to be precisely three inches and a quarter in 
length. It had been intended, there could be no doubt, 
as an ornamental article of dress ; but how it was to be 
worn, or what rank, honor, and dignity, in by-past times, 
were signified by it, was a riddle which (so evanescent are 
the fashions of the world in these particulars) I saw little 
hope of solving. And yet it strangely interested me. 
My eyes fastened themselves upon the old scarlet letter, 
and would not be turned aside. Certainly, there was 
some deep meaning in it, most worthy of interpretation, 
and which, as it were, streamed forth from the mystic 
symbol, subtly communicating itself to my sensibilities, 
but evading the analysis of my mind. 

While thus perplexed, — and cogitating, among other 
hypotheses, whether the letter might not have been one 
of those decorations which the white men used to con- 
trive, in order "to take the eyes of Indians, — I happened 
to place it on my breast. It seemed to me, — the reader 
may smile, but must not doubt my word, — it seemed to 
me, then, that I experienced a sensation not altogether 
physical, yet almost so, as of burning heat ; and as if the 
letter were not of red cloth, but red-hot iron. I shud- 
dered, and involuntarily let it fall upon the floor. 

In the absorbing contemplation of the scarlet letter, 1 
had hitherto neglected to examine a small roll rf dingy 


38 


THE SCARLET LETTER. 


paper, around which it had been twisted. This I now 
opened, and had the satisfaction to find, recorded by the old 
Surveyor’s pen, a reasonably complete explanation of the 
whole affair. There were several foolscap sheets, contain- 
ing many particulars respecting the life and conversation 
of one Hester Prynne, who appeared to have been rather 
a noteworthy personage in the view ox our ancestors. 
She had flourished during the period between the early 
days of Massachusetts and the close of the seventeenth 
century. Aged persons, alive in the time of Mr. Sur- 
veyor Pue, and from whose oral testimony he had made 
up his narrative, remembered her, in their youth, as a 
very old, but not decrepit woman, of a stately and solemn 
aspect. It had been her habit, from an almost immemo- 
rial date, to go about the country as a kind of volun- 
tary nurse, and doing whatever miscellaneous good she 
might : taking upon herself, likewise, to give advice in 
all matters, especially those of the heart ; by which means, 
as a person of such propensities inevitably must, she 
gained from many people the reverence due to an angel, 
but, I should imagine, was looked upon by others as an 
intruder and a nuisance. Prying further into the manu- 
script, I found the record of other doings and sufferings 
of this singular woman, for most of which the reader is 
referred to the story entitled “ The Scarlet Letter ” ; 
and it should be borne carefully in mind, that the main 
facts of that story are authorized and authenticated by 
the document of Mr. Surveyor Pue. The original papers, 
together with the scarlet letter itself, — a most curious 
relic, — are still in my possession, and shall be freely 
exhibited to whomsoever, induced by the great interest 
if the narrative, may desire a sight of them. J must 


THE CUSTOM-HOUSE. 


:\7 

not be undei stood as affirming, that, in the dressing up, 
of the tale, and imagining the motives and modes of pas- 
sion that influenced the characters who figure in it, I 
have invariably confined myself within the limits of the 
old Surveyor’s half a dozen sheets of foolscap. On the 
contrary, I have allowed myself, as to such points, nearly 
or altogether as much license as if the facts had been 
entirely of my own invention. What I contend for i3 
the authenticity of the outline. 

This incident recalled my mind, in some degree, to its 
old track. There seemed to be here the ground-work of 
a tale. It impressed me as if the ancient Surveyor, in 
his garb of a hundred years gone by, and wearing his 
immortal wig, — which was buried with him, but did not 
perish in the grave, — had met me in the deserted cham- 
ber of the Custom-House. In his port was the dignity 
of one who had borne his Majesty’s commission, and who 
was therefore illuminated by a ray of the splendor that 
shone so dazzlingly about the throne. How unlike, alas 1 
the hang-dog look of a republican official, who, as the 
servant of the people, feels himself less than the least, 
and below the lowest, of his masters. What his own 
ghostly hand, the obscurely seen but majestic figure had 
imparted to me the scarlet symbol, and the little roll of 
explanatory manuscript. With his own ghostly voice, 
he had exhorted me, on the sacred consideration of my 
filial duty and reverence towards him, — who might rea- 
sonably regard himself as my official ancestor, — to bring 
nis mouldy and moth-eaten lucubrations before the public. 
“ Do this,” said the ghost of Mr. Surveyor Fue, emphati- 
cally nodding the head that looked so imposing within 
U>. memorable wig, “ do this, and the profit shall be all 


38 


THE SCARLET LETTER. 


youi own! You will shortly need it; for it is n,)t in 
your days as it was in mine, when a man’s office was 
life-lease, and oftentimes an heirloom. But, I charge 
you, in this matter of old Mistress Prynne, give to your 
predecessor’s memory the credit which will be rightfully 
due ! ” And I said to the ghost of Mr. Surveyor Pue, — 
“ I will ! ” 

On Hester Prynne ’s story, therefore, I bestowed much 
thought. It was the subject of my meditations for many 
an hour, while pacing to and fro across my room, or trav- 
ersing, with a hundred-fold repetition, the long extent 
from the front-door of the Custom-House to the side- 
entrance, and back again. Great were the weariness and 
annoyance of the old Inspector and the Weighers and 
Gaugers, whose slumbers were disturbed by the unmer- 
cifully lengthened tramp of my passing and returning 
footsteps. Kemembering their own former habits, they 
used to say that the Surveyor was walking the quarter- 
deck. They probably fancied that my sole object — and, 
indeed, the sole object for which a sane man could ever 
put himself into voluntary motion — was, to get an appe- 
tite for dinner. And to say the truth, an appetite, sharp- 
ened by the east wind that generally blew along the pas- 
sage, was the only valuable result of so much indefati- 
gable exercise. So little adapted is the atmosphere of a 
Custom-House to the delicate harvest of fancy and sensi- 
bility, that, had I remained there through ten Presiden- 
cies yet to come, I doubt whether the tale of “ The 
Scarlet Letter ” would ever have been brought before the 
public eye. My imagination was a tarnished mirror. It 
would not reflect, or only with miserable dimness, the 
figures with which I did my best to people it. The 


THE CUSTOM-hOUSE. 


39 


character* of the narrative would not be warmed and 
rendered malleable by any heat that I could kindle at my 
intellectual iorg^. They would take neither the glow of 
passion nor the tenderness of sentiment, but retained all 
the rigidity of dead corpses, and stared me in the face 
with a fixed and ghastly grin of contemptuous defiance. 
* What have you to do with u« ? ” that expression seemed 
<o say. “The little power you might once have 
possessed over the tribe of unrealities is gone! You 
Pave bartered it for a pittance of the public gold. Go, 
then, and earn your wages ! ” In short, the aimosv, torpid 
creatures of my own fancy twitted me with imbecility, 
and not without fair occasion. 

It was not merely during the three hours and a half 
which Uncle Sam claimed as his share of my daily life, 
that this wretched numbness held possession of me. It 
went with me on my sea-shore walks, and rambles into 
the country, whenever — which was seldom and reluct- 
antly — I bestirred myself to seek tnat invigorating charm 
ot Nature, which used to give me such freshness and ac- 
tivity of thought, the moment that I sieppeu across tne 
threshold of the Okl Manse, lne same torpor, as re- 
garded the capacity for intellectual eifort, accompanied 
me home, and weighed upon me in the chamber whicn 1 
most absurdly termed my study. Nor did it quit me, 
when, late at night, I sat in the deserted parlor, lighted 
only by the glimmering 1 coal-fire and the moon, striving 
to picture forth imaginary scenes, which, the next day, 
might flow out on the brightening page in many-hue(i 
description. 

If the imaginative faculty refused to act at such an 
hour, it might well be deemed a hopeless case. Moon 


40 


7 HE SCARLET LETTER. 


light, in a familiar room, falling so white upon the carpet, 
and showing all its figures so distinctly, — making every 
object so minutely visible, yet so unlike a morning or 
noontide visibility, — is a medium the most suitable for 
a romance-writer to get acquainted with his illusive 
guests. There is the little domestic scenery of the well- 
known apartment ; the chairs, with each its separate indi- 
viduality ; the centre-table, sustaining a work-basket, a 
volume or two, and an extinguished lamp ; the sofa ; the 
book-case; the picture on the wall; — all these details, 
so completely seen, are so spiritualized by the unusual 
light, that they seem to lose their actual substance, ana 
become things of intellect. Nothing is too small or too 
trifling to undergo this change, and acquire dignity there- 
by. A child’s shoe ; the doll, seated in her little wicker 
carriage ; the hobby-horse ; — whatever, in a word, has 
been used or played with, during the day, is now invested 
with a quality of strangeness and remoteness, though 
still almost as vividly present as by daylight. Thus, 
therefore, the floor of our familiar room has become a 
neutral territory, somewhere between the real world and 
fairy-land, where the Actual and the Imaginary may 
meet, and each imbue itself with the nature of the other. 
Ghosts might enter here, without affrighting us. It 
would be too much in keeping with the scene to excite 
surprise, were we to look about us and discover a form 
beloved, but gone hence, now sitting quietly in a streak of 
this magic moonshine, with an aspect that would make 
us doubt whether it had returned from afar, or had never 
once stirred from our fireside. 

The somewhat dim coal-fire has an essential influence 
in producing the effect which I would describe. It throws 


THE CUSTOM-HOUSE. 


4 


hs unobtrusive tinge throughout the room, with a faint 
ruddiness upon the walls and ceiling, and a reflected 
gleam from the polish of the furniture. This warmer 
light mingles itself with the cold spirituality of the moon- 
beams, and communicates, as it were, a heart and sensi- 
bilities of human tenderness to the forms which fancy 
summons up. It converts them from snow-images into 
men and women. Glancing at the looking-glass, we 
behold — deep within its haunted verge — the smoulder- 
ing glow of the half-extinguished anthracite, the white 
moonbeams on the floor, and a repetition of all the gleam 
and shadow of the picture, with one remove further from 
the actual, and nearer to the imaginative. Then, at such 
an hour, and with this scene before him, if a man, sitting 
all alone, cannot dream strange things, and make them 
look like truth, he need never try to write romances. 

But, for myself, during the whole of my Custom- 
House experience, moonlight and sunshine, and the glow 
of fire-light, were just alike in my regard ; and neither 
of them was of one whit more avail than the twinkle of 
a talL w-candle. An entire class of susceptibilities, and 
a gift connected with them, — of no great richness or 
value, but the best I had, — was gone from me. 

It is my belief, however, that, had I attempted a differ- 
ent order of composition, my faculties would not have 
been found so pointless and inefficacious. I might, for 
instance, have contented myself with writing out the 
narratives of a veteran shipmaster, one of the Inspectors, 
whom I should be most ungrateful net to mention, since 
scarcely a day passed that he did not stir me to laughter 
and admiration by his marvellous gifts as a story-teller. 
Could I have preserved the picturesque force of his style.- 


12 


THE SCARLET LETTER. 


and the humorous coloring- which nature taught him 
how to throw over his descriptions, the result, I honestly 
believe, would have been something new in literature. 
Or I might readily have found a more serious task. It 
was a folly, with the materiality of this daily life press- 
ing so intrusively upon me, to attempt to fling myself 
back into another age ; or to insist on creating the sem- 
blance of a world out of airy matter, when, at every 
moment, the impalpable beauty of my soap-bubble was 
broken by the rude contact of some actual circumstance. 
The wiser effort would have been, to diffuse thought 
and imagination through the opaque substance of to-day, 
and thus to make it a bright transparency; to spirit- 
ualize the burden that began to weigh so heavily ; to 
seek, resolutely, the true and indestructible value that 
lay hidden in the petty and wearisome incidents, and 
ordinary characters, with which I was now conversant. 
The fault was mine. The page of life that was spread 
out before me seemed dull and commonplace, only be- 
cause I had not fathomed its deeper import. A better 
book than I shall ever write was there ; leaf after leaf 
presenting itself to me, just as it was written out by the 
reality of the flitting hour, and vanishing as fast as 
written, only because my brain wanted the insight and 
my hand the cunning to transcribe it. At some future 
day, it may be, I shall remember a few scattered frag- 
ments and broken paragraphs, and write them down, and 
find the letters turn to gold upon the page. 

These perceptions have come too late. At the in- 
stant, I was only conscious that what would have been 
a pleasure once was now a hopeless toil. There was 
no occasion to make much moan about this state of 


THE CUSTOM-HOUSE. 


4tt 

affairs. I had ceased to be a writer of tolerably poor 
tales and essays, and had become a tolerably good Sur- 
veyor of the Customs. That was all. But, neverthe- 
less, it is anything but agreeable to be haunted by a 
suspicion that one’s intellect is dwindling away; or 
exhaling, without your consciousness, like ether out of 
a phial , so that, at every glance, you find a smaller 
and less volatile residuum. Of the fact, there could be 
no doubt ; and, examining myself and others, I was led 
to conclusions, in reference to the effect of public office 
on the character, not very favorable to the mode of life 
in question. In some other form, perhaps, I may here- 
after develop these effects. Suffice it here to say, that 
a Custom-House officer, of long continuance, can hardly 
be a very praiseworthy or respectable personage, for 
many reasons; one of them, the tenure by which he 
holds his situation, and another, the very nature of his 
business, which — though, I trust, an honest one — is of 
such a sort that he does not share in the united effort of 
mankind. 

An effect — which I believe to be observable, more or 
less, in every individual who has occupied the position 
— is, that, while he leans on the mighty arm of the 
Republic, his own proper strength departs from him. 
He loses, in an extent proportioned to the weakness or 
force of his original nature, the capability of self-support. 
If he possess an unusual share of native energy, or the 
enervating magic of place do not operate too long upon 
him, his forfeited powers may be redeemable. The 
ejected officer — fortunate in the unkindly shove that 
6ends him forth betimes, to struggle amid a struggling 
world — may return to himself, and become all that he 


44 


THE SCARLET LETTER. 


nas ever been. But this seldom happens He usually 
keeps his ground just long enough for his ?wn ruin, and 
is then thrust out, with sinews all unstrung, to totteT 
along the lifficult footpath of life as he best may. 
Conscious Oi his own infirmity, — that his tempered 
steel and elasticity are lost, — he forever afterwards 
looks wistfully about him in quest of support external to 
himself. His pervading and continual hope — a hallu- 
cination, which, in the face of all discouragement, and 
making light of impossibilities, haunts him while he 
lives, and, I fancy, like the convulsive throes of the 
cholera, torments him for a brief space after death — is, 
that finally, and in no long time, by some happy coin- 
cidence of circumstances, he shall be restored to office. 
This faith, more than anything else, steals the pith and 
availability out of whatever enterprise he may dream of 
undertaking. Why should he toil and moil, and be at 
.so much trouble to pick himself up out of the mud, 
when, in a little while hence, the strong arm of his 
Uncle will raise and support him? Why should he 
work for his living here, or go to dig gold in California 
when he so soon to be made happy, at monthly inter- 
vals, with a little pile of glittering coin out of his Uncle’s 
pocket ? It is sadly curious to observe how slight a 
taste of office suffices to infect a poor fellow with this 
singular disease. Uncle Sam’s gold — meaning no dis- 
respect to the worthy old gentleman — has, in this 
respect a quality of enchantment like that of the Devil’s 
wages. Whoever touches it should look well to him 
self, or he may find the bargain to go hard against him, 
involving, if not his soul, yet many of its better attri- 
butes; its sturdy force, its courage and constancy, i 


THE CTTST0M-H/7TJSE. 


45 


truth, its seif-reliance, and all that gives the emphasis to 
manly character. 

Here was a fine prospect in the distance ! Not that 
the Surveyor brought the lesson home to himself, or 
admitted that he could be so utterly undone, either by 
continuance in office, or ejectment. Yet my reflections 
were not the most comfortable. I began to grow mel- 
ancholy and restless ; continually prying into my mind, 
to discover which of its poor properties were gone, 
and what degree of detriment had steady accrued to the 
remainder. I endeavored to calculate how much longer 
I could stay in the Custom-House, and yet go forth d 
man. To confess the truth, iv vvas my greatest appre- 
hension, — as it would never be a measure of policy to 
turn out so quiet an individual as myself, and it being 
hardly in the nature of a public officer to resign, — it 
was my chief trouble, therefore, that I was likely to grow 
gray and decrepit in the Surveyorship, and become 
much such another animal as the old Inspector. Might 
it not, in the tedious lapse of official life that lay before 
me, finally be with me as it was with this venerable 
friend, — to make the dinner-hour the nucleus of the 
day, and to spend the rest of it, as an old dog spends it, 
asleep in the sunshine or in the shade ? A dreary look- 
forward this, for a man who felt it to be the best defini- 
tion of happiness to live throughout the whole range of 
his faculties and sensibilities! But, all this while, I 
was giving myself very unnecessary alarm. Providence 
had meditated better things for me than I could possibly 
imagine for myself. 

A remarkable event of the third year of my Surveyor- 
ship — to adopt the tone of “P. P.” — was the election 


46 


THE SCARLET LETTER. 


of General Taylor to the Presidency. It is essential, in 
order to a complete estimate of the advantages of official 
life, to view the incumbent at the in-coming of a hostile 
administration. His position is then one of the most 
singularly irksome, and, in every contingency, disagree- 
able, that a wretched mortal can possibly occupy; with 
seldom an alternative of good, on either hand, although 
what presents itself to him as the worst event may very 
probably be the best. But it is a strange experience, to 
a man of pride and sensibility, to know that his interests 
are within the control of individuals who neither love nor 
understand him, and by whom, since one or the other 
must needs happen, he would rather be injured than 
obliged. Strange, too, for one who has kept his calm- 
ness throughout the contest, to observe the bloodthirsti- 
ness that is developed in the hour of triumph, and to be 
conscious that he is himself among its objects ! There 
are few uglier traits of human nature than this tendency 
— which I now witnessed in men no worse than their 
neighbors — to grow cruel, merely because they pos- 
sessed the power of inflicting harm. If the guillotine, 
as applied to office-holders, were a literal fact, instead 
of one of the most apt of metaphors, it is my sincere 
belief, that the active members of the victorious party 
were sufficiently excited to have chopped off all our 
heads, and have thanked Heaven for the opportunity 1 
It appears to me — who have been a calm and curious 
observer, as well in victory as defeat — that this fierce 
and bitter spirit of malice and revenge has never distin- 
guished the many triumphs of my own party as it now did 
that of the Whigs. The Democrats take the offices, aa 
a general rule, because they need them, and because the 


THE CUSTORY-HOUSE. 


47 


practice of many years has made it the law of political 
warfare, which, unless a different system be proclaimed, 
it were weakness and cowardice to murmur at. But the 
long habit of victory has made them generous. They 
know how to spare, when they see occasion ; and when 
they strike, the axe may be sharp, indeed, but its edge is 
seldom poisoned with ill-will ; nor is it their custom igno* 
miniously to kick the head which they have just struck 
off. 

In short, unpleasant as was my predicament, at best, 
I saw much reason to congratulate myself that I was on 
the losing side, rather than the triumphant one. If, 
heretofore, I had been none of the warmest of parti- 
sans,! began now, at this season of peril and adversity, 
to be pretty acutely sensible with which party my predi- 
lections lay; nor was it without something like regret 
and shame, that, according to a reasonable calculation 
of chances, I saw my own prospect of retaining office 
to be better than those of my Democratic brethren. But 
who can see an inch into futurity, beyond his nose ? My 
own head was the first that fell ! 

The moment when a man’s head drops off is seldom 
or never, I am inclined to think, precisely the most 
agreeable of kis life. Nevertheless, like the greater 
part of our misfortunes, even so serious a contingency 
brings its remedy and consolation with it, if the sufferer 
will but make the best, rather than the worst, of the 
accident which has befallen him. In my particular 
case, the consolatory topics were close at hand, and. 
indeed, had suggested themselves to my meditations a 
considerable time before it was requisite to use them, 
In view of my previous weariness of office, and vague 


48 


THE SCARLET LETTER 


thoughts of resignation, my fortune somewhat resembled 
that of a person who should entertain an idea of com- 
mitting suicide, and, although beyond his hopes, meet 
with the good hap to be murdered. In the Custom-House, 
es before in the Old Manse, I had spent three years ; a 
term long enough to rest a weary brain ; long enough to 
break off old intellectual habits, and make room for new 
ones ; long enough, and too long, to have lived in an un- 
natural state, doing what was really of no advantage noi 
delight to any human being, and withholding myself 
from toil that would, at least, have stilled an unquiet im- 
pulse in me. Then, moreover, as regarded his uncer- 
emonious ejectment, the late Surveyor was not altogether 
ill-pleased to be recognized by the Whigs as an enemy ; 
since his inactivity in political affairs, — his tendency to 
roam, at will, in that broad and quiet field where all 
mankind may meet, rather than confine himself to those 
narrow paths where brethren of the same household 
must diverge from one another, — had sometimes mad* 
it questionable with his brother Democrats whether he 
Was a friend. Now, after he had won the crown of mar- 
tyrdom, (though with no longer a head to wear it on,‘» 
the point might be looked upon as settled. Finally, lit- 
tle heroic as he was, it seemed more decorous to be over- 
thrown in the downfall of the party with which he had 
been content to stand, than to remain a forlorn survivor, 
when so many worthier men were falling ; and, at last, 
after subsisting for four years on the mercy of a hostile 
administration, to be compelled then to define his position 
anew, and claim the yet more humiliating mercy of a 
friendly one. 

Meanwhile the press had taken up my affair, and kept 


TIIE CUSTOM-HOUSE. 


43 


me, for a week or two, careering through the public 
prints, in my decapitated state, like Irving’s Headless 
Horseman ; ghastly and grim, and longing to be buried, 
os a politically dead man ought. So much for my figu- 
rative self. The real human being, all this time, with his 
head safely on his shoulders, had brought himself to the 
comfortable conclusion that everything was for the best ; 
and, making an investment in ink, paper, and steel-pens, 
had opened his long-disused writing-desk, and was again 
a literary man. 

Now it was, that the lucubrations of my ancient pred- 
ecessor, Mr. Surveyor Pue, came into play. Rusty 
through long idleness, some little space was requisite 
before my intellectual machinery could be brought to 
work upon the tale, with an effect in any degree satis- 
factory. Even yet, though my thoughts were ultimately 
much absorbed in the task, it wears, .to my eye, a stem 
and sombre aspect ; too much ungladdened by genial 
sunshine ; too little relieved by the tender and familiar 
influences which soften almost every scene of nature and 
real life, and, undoubtedly, should soften every picture 
of them. This uncaptivating effect is perhaps due to the 
period of hardly accomplished revolution, and still seeth- 
ing turmoil, in which the story shaped itself. It is no 
indication, however, of a lack of cheerfulness in the 
writer’s mind; for he was happier, while straying 
through the gloom of these sunless fantasies, than at 
any time since he had quitted the Old Manse. Some 
of the briefer articles, which contribute to make up the 
volume, have likewise been written since my involuntary 
withdrawal from the toils and honors of public life, and 
the remainder are gleaned from annuals and magazines, 
4 


50 


THE SCARLET LETT Jilt. 


of such antique date that they have gone round tne cn 
cle, and come back to novelty again.* Keeping up the 
metaphor of the political guillotine, the whole may be 
considered as the Posthumous Papers of a Decapitated 
Surveyor ; and the sketch which I am now bringing to 
a close, if too autobiographical for a modest person to 
publish in his lifetime, will readily be excused in a gen- 
tleman who writes from beyond the grave. Peace be 
with all the world ! My blessing on my friends ! My 
forgiveness to my enemies ! For I am in the realm of 
quiet ! 

The life of the Custom-House lies like a dream behind 
me. The old Inspector, — who, by the by, I regret to 
say, was overthrown and killed by a horse, some time 
ago ; else he would certainly have lived forever, — he, 
and all those other venerable personages who sat with 
him at the receipt of custom, are but shadows in my 
view; white-headed and wrinkled images, which my 
fancy used to sport with, and has now flung aside for- 
ever. The merchants, — Pingree, Phillips, Shepard, Up- 
ton, Kimball, Bertram, Hunt, — these, and many other 
names, which had such a classic familiarity for my ear 
six months ago, — these men of traffic, who seemed to 
occupy so important a position in the world, — how lit- 
tle time has it required to disconnect me from them all, 
not merely in act, but recollection ! It is with an 
effort that I recall the figures and appellations of these 
few. Soon, likewise, my old native town will loom upon 
me through the haze of memory, a mist brooding over 

* At the time of writing this article, the author intended to publish, 
along with “The Scarlet Letter,” several shorter tales and sketches 
These it has been thought advisable to defer. 


THE oTJSTOM-HOUSE. 


51 


And around it ; as if it were no portion of the real earth, 
hut an overgrown village in cloud-land, with only imag- 
inary inhabitants to people its wooden houses, and walk 
its homely lanes, and the unpicturesque prolixity of its 
main street. Henceforth, it ceases to be a reality of my 
life. I am a citizen of somewhere else. My good 
townspeople will not much regret me ; for — though it 
has been as dear an object as any, in my literary efforts, 
to be of some importance in their eyes, and to win my- 
self a pleasant memory in this abode and burial-place 
of so many of my forefathers — there has never been, 
for me, the genial atmosphere which a literary man 
requires, in order to ripen the best harvest of his mind, 
i shall do better amongst other faces ; and these familiar 
ones, it need hardly be said, will do just as well without 
me. 

It may be, however, — O, transporting and triumphant 
thought ! — that the great-grandchildren of the present 
race may sometimes think kindly of the scribbler of by- 
gone days, when the antiquary of days to come, among 
the sites memorable in the town’s hisUry, shall point 
out the locality of The Town Pump ! 


* 






* 



















THE SCARLET LETTER 


I. 


THE PRISON-DOOR. 

A throng of bearded men, in sad-colored garments, 
and gray, steepWrowned hats, intermixed with women, 
some wearing hoods, and others bareheaded, was assem- 
bled in front of a wooden edifice, the door of which 
was heavily timbered with oak, and studded with iron 
spikes. 

The founders of a new colony, whatever Utopia of 
human virtue and happiness they might originally pro- 
ject, have invariably recognized it among their earliest 
practical necessities to allot a portion of the virgin soil 
as a cemetery, and another portion as the site of a prison. 
In accordance with this rule, it may safely be assumed 
that the forefathers of Boston had built the first prison- 
house somewhere in the vicinity of Comhill, almost as 
seasonably as they marked out the first burial-ground, 
on Isaac Johnson’s lot, and round about his grave, which 
subsequently became the nucleus of all the congregated 
sepulchres in the old church-yard of King’s Chapel. 
Certain it is, that, some fifteen or twenty years after the 
settlement of the town, the wooden jail was already 
marked with weather-stains and other indications of age. 


54 


THE SCARLET LETTER. 


which gave a yet darker aspect to its beetle-browed and 
gloomy front. The rust on the ponderous iron-work of 
its oaken door looked more antique than anything else 
in the New World. Like all that pertains to crime, it 
seemed never to have known a youthful era. Before 
this ugly edifice, and between it and the wheel-track 
of the street, was a grass-plot, much overgrown with 
burdock, pig-weed, apple-peru, and such unsightly vege- 
tation, which evidently found something congenial in 
the soil that had so early borne the black flower of civ 
ilized society, a prison. But, on one side of the portal, 
and rooted almost at the threshold, was a wild rose-bush, 
covered, in this month of June, with its delicate gems, 
which might be imagined to offer their fragrance and 
fragile beauty to the prisoner as he went in, and to the 
condemned criminal as he came forth to his doom, in 
token that the deep heart of Nature could pity and be 
kind to him. 

This rose-bush, by a strange chance, has been kept 
alive in history ; but whether it had merely survived out 
of the stern old wilderness, so long after the fall of the 
gigantic pines and oaks that originally overshadowed 
it, — or whether, as there is fair authority for believing, 
it had sprung up under the footsteps of the sainted Ann 
Hutchinson, as she entered the prison-door, — we shah 
net take upon us to determine. Finding it sc directly 
on the threshold of our narrative, which is now about to 
issue from that inauspicious portal, we could hardly do 
otherwise than pluck one of its flowers, and jsresent it to 
the reader. It may serve, let us hope, to symbolize some 
sweet moral blossom, that may be found along the track, 
or relieve the darkening close of a tale of human frailty 
and sorrow. 


r HI. MARKET-PLACE. 


W 


II. 

THE MARKET-PLACE. 

The grass-plot before the jail, in Prison-lane, oil a 
certain summer morning, not less than two centuries 
ago, was occupied by a pretty large numoer of the 
inhabitants of Boston ; all with their eyes intently fast- 
ened on the iron-clamped oaken door. Amongst any 
other population, or at a later period in the history of 
New England, the grim rigidity that petrified the bearded 
physiognomies of these good people would have augured 
some awfui business in hand. It could have betokened 
nothing short of the anticipated execution of some noted 
culprit, on whom the sentence of a legal tribunal had but 
confirmed the verdict of public sentiment. But, in that 
early severity of the Puritan character, an inference of 
this kind could not so indubitably be drawn. It might 
be that a sluggish bond-servant, or an un dutiful child, 
whom his parents had given over to the civil authority, 
was to be corrected at the whipping-post. It might be, 
that an Antinomian, a Quaker, or other heterodox relig- 
ionist, was to be scourged out of the town, or an idle and 
vagrant Indian, whom the white man’s fire-water had 
made riotous about the streets, was to be driven with 
stripes into the shadow of the forest. It might be, too, 
tnat a witch, like old Mistress Hibbins, the bitter- 
tempered widow of the magistrate, was to die upon the 
gallows. In either case, there was very much the same 
•olemnity of lemeanor on the part of the spectators ; as 


50 


THE SCARLET LETTER. 


befitted a people amongst whom religion and lav® were 
almost identical, and in whose character both were si 
thoroughly interfused, that the mildest and the severest 
acts of public discipline were alike made venerable and 
awful. Meagre, indeed, and cold, was the sympathy 
that a transgressor might look for, from such by 
standers, at the scaffold. On the other hand, a penalty 
which, in our days, would infer a degree of mocking 
infamy and ridicule, might then be invested with 
almost as stem a dignity as the punishment of death 
itself. 

It was a circumstance to be noted, on the summei 
morning when our story begins its course, that the 
women, of whom there were several in the crowd, 
appeared to take a peculiar interest in whatever penal 
infliction might be expected to ensue. The age had 
not so much refinement, that any sense of impropriety 
restrained the wearers of petticoat and farthingale fron 
stepping forth into the public ways, and wedging their 
not unsubstantial persons, if occasion were, into the 
throng nearest to the scaffold at an execution. Morally, 
as well as materially, there was a coarser fibre in those 
wives and maidens of old English birth and breeding, 
than in their fair descendants, separated from them by 
a series of six or seven generations; for, throughout 
that chain of ancestry, every successive mother has 
transmitted to her child a fainter bloom, a more delicate 
and briefer beauty, and a slighter physical frame, if not 
a character of less force and solidity, than her own. 
The women who were now standing about the prison- 
door stood within less than half a century of the period 
when the man-like Elizabeth had been the not alto* 


HIE MARKET-PLACE. 


57 


gether unsuitable representative of the sex. They were 
her countrywomen ; and the beef and ale cf their native 
land, with a moral diet not a whit more refined, entered 
largely into their composition. The bright morning 
sun, therefore, shone on broad shoulders and well- 
developed busts, and on round and ruddy cheeks, that 
had ripened in the far-off island, and had hardly yet 
grown paler or thinner in the atmosphere of New 
England. There was, moreover, a boldness and rotund 
ity of speech among these matrons, as most of tliem 
seemed to be, that would startle us at the present day ; 
whether in respect to its purport or its volume of 
tone. 

“ Goodwives,” said a hard-featured dame of fifty, 
“ I ’ll tell ye a piece of my mind. It would be greatly 
for the public behoof, if we women, being of mature age 
and church-members in good repute, should have the 
handling of such malefactresses as this Hester Prynne. 
What think ye, gossips? If the hussy stood up for 
iudgment before us five, that are now here in a knot 
together, would she come off with such a sentence as 
the worshipful magistrates have awarded? Marry, I 
trow not ! ” 

“ People say,” said another, “ that the Reverend 
Master Dimmesdale, her godly pastor, takes it very 
grievously to heart that such a scandal shculd have 
come upon his congregation.” 

“ The magistrates are God-fearing gentlemen, but 
merciful overmuch, — that is a truth,” added a third 
autumnal matron. “At the very least, they should 
have put the brand of a hot iron on Hester Prynne’a 
forenead. Madam Hester would have winced at that, I 


THE SCARLET LET1ER. 


tiQ 

warrant me. But she, — the naughty baggage, — little 
will she care what they put upon the bodice of her gown ! 
Why, look you, she may cover it with a brooch, or sucli 
like heathenish adornment, and so walk the streets as 
brave as ever ! ” 

“ Ah, but,” interposed, more softly, a young wife, hold- 
ing a child by the hand, “ let her cover the mark as she 
will, the pang of it will be always in her heart.” 

“ What do we talk of marks and brands, whether on 
the bodice of her gown, or the flesh of her forehead ? ” 
cried another female, the ugliest as well as the most pit 
iless of these self-constituted judges. “ This woman has 
brought shame upon us all, and ought to die. Is there 
not law for it ? Truly there is, both in the Scripture and 
the statute-book. Then let the magistrates, who have 
made it of 'no effect, thank themselves if their own wives 
and daughters go astray ! ” 

“ Mercy on us, goodwife,” exclaimed a man in the 
crowd, “ is there no virtue in woman, save what springs 
from a wholesome fear of the gallows ? That is the 
hardest word yet ! Hush, now, gossips ! for the lock is 
turning in the prison door, and here comes Mistress 
Prynne herself.” 

The door of the jail being flung open from within, 
there appeared, in the first place, like a black shadow 
emerging into sunshine, the grim and grisly presence 
of the town-beadle, with a sword by his side, and his 
staff* of office in his hand. This personage prefigured 
and represented in his aspect the whole dismal severity 
of the Puritanic code of law, which it was his business 
to administer in its final and closest application to the 
offender. Stretching forth the official staff in his lefi 


THE MARKET-PLACE. 


hand, he laid his right upon the shoulder of a young 
woman, whom he thus drew forward; until, on the 
threshold of the prison-door, she repelled him, by an 
action marked with natural dignity and force of charac- 
ter, and stepped into the open air, as if by her own free 
will. She bore in her arms a child, a baby of some 
three months old, who winked and turned aside its little 
face from the too vivid light of day ; because its exist- 
ence, heretofore, had brought it acquainted only with the 
gray twilight of a dungeon, or other darksome apartment 
of the prison. 

When the young woman — the mother of this child 
— stood fully revealed before the crowd, it seemed to be 
her first impulse to clasp the infant closely to her bosom , 
not so much by an impulse of motherly affection, as that 
she might thereby conceal a certain token, which was 
wrought or fastened into her dress. In a moment, how- 
ever, wisely judging that one token of her shame would 
but poorly serve to hide another, she took the baby on 
her arm, and, with a burning blush, and yet a haughty 
smile, and a glance that would not be abashed, looked 
around at her townspeople and neighbors. On the breast 
of her gown, in fine red cloth, surrounded with an elab- 
orate embroidery and fantastic flourishes of gold thread, 
appeared the letter A. It was so artistically done, and 
with so much fertility and gorgeous luxuriance of fancy, 
that it had all the effect of a last and fitting decoration 
to the apparel which she wore ; and which was of a 
splendor in accordance with the taste of the age, but 
greatly beyond what was allowed by the sumptuary reg- 
ulations of the colony. 

The young woman was tall, with a figure of perfect 


60 


THE SCARLET LETTER. 


wegcnce on a large scale. She had dark and abundant 
nair, so glossy that it threw off the sunshine with a 
gleam, and a face which, besides being beautiful from 
regularity of feature and richness of complexion, had 
the impressiveness belonging to a marked brow and 
deep black eyes. She was lady-like, too, after the man- 
ner of the feminine gentility of those days ; character- 
ized by a certain state and dignity, rather than by the 
delicate, evanescent, and indescribable grace, which is 
now recognized as its indication. And never had Hester 
Prynne appeared more lady-like, in the antique interpre* 
tation of the term, than as she issued from the prison. 
Those who had before known her, and had expected tc 
behold her dimmed and obscured by a disastrous cloud, 
were astonished, and even startled, to perceive how her 
beauty shone out, and made a halo of the misfortune and 
ignominy in which she was enveloped. It may be true, 
that, to a sensitive observer, there was something exqui- 
sitely painful in it. Her attire, which, indeed, she had 
wrought for the occasion, in prison, and had modelled 
much after her own fancy, seemed to express the attitude 
of her spirit, the desperate recklessness of her mood, by 
its wild and picturesque peculiarity. But the point which 
drew all eyes, and, as it were, transfigured the wearer, 

• — so that both men and women, who had been familiarly 
acquainted with Hester Prynne, were now impressed as 
if they beheld her for the first time, — was that Scarlet 
Letter, so fantastically embroidered and illuminated 
upon her bosom. It had the effect of a spel , taking hei 
out of the ordinary relations with humanity, and enclos- 
ing her in a sphere by herself. 

“She hath good skill at her needle, that’s certain/ 


THE MA11KET-PLACE. 


6 


remarked one of her female spectators • “tut did ever u 
woman, before this brazen hussy, contrive such a way 
of showing it ! Why, gossips, what is it but to laugh in 
the faces of our godly magistrates, and make a pride 
out of what they, worthy gentlemen, meant for a punish- 
ment?” 

“ It were well,” muttered the most iron-visaged of the 
old dames, “ if we stripped Madam Hester’s rich gown 
off her dainty shoulders ; and as for the red letter, which 
she hath stitched so curiously, I ’ll bestow a rag of mine 
own rheumatic flannel, to make a fitter one ! ” 

“ O, peace, neighbors, peace ! ” whispered their young- 
est companion ; “ do not let her hear you ! Not a stitch 
in that embroidered letter, but she has felt it in her 
heart.” 

The grim beadle now made a gesture with his staff. 

“ Make way, good people, make way, in the King’s 
name ! ” cried he. “ Open a passage ; and, I promise 
ye, Mistress Prynne shall be set where man, woman 
and child, may have a fair sight of her brave apparel, 
from this time till an hour past merid’an. A blessing on 
the righteous Colony of the Massachusetts, where in- 
iquity is dragged out into the sunshine ! Come along, 
Madam Hester, and show your scarlet letter in the 
market-place ! ” 

A lane was forthwith opened through the crowd of 
spectators. Preceded by the beadle, and attended by 
an irregular procession of stem-browed men and un 
kindly visaged women, Hester Prynne set forth toward* 
the place appointed for her punishment. A crowd of 
eager and curious school-boys, understanding little of the 
matter in hand, except that it gave them a half-holiday, 


62 


Till: SCARLET LETTER. 


fan before her progress, turning their heads continually 
to stare into her face, and at the winking baby in hex 
arms, and at the ignominious letter on her breast. It 
was no great distance, in those days, from the prison- 
door to the market-place. Measured by the prisoner’s 
experience, however, it might be reckoned a journey of 
some length ; for, haughty as her demeanor was, she per- 
chance underwent an agony from every footstep of those 
that thronged to see her, as if her heart had been flung 
into the street for them all to spurn and trample upon. 
In our nature, however, there is a provision, alike mar- 
vellous and merciful, that the sufferer should never know 
the intensity of what he endures by its present torture, 
but chiefly by the pang that rankles after it. With 
almost a serene deportment, therefore, Hester Prynne 
passed through this portion of her ordeal, and came to a 
sort of scaffold, at the western extremity of the market- 
place. It stood nearly beneath the eaves of Boston’s 
earliest church, and appeared to be a fixture there. 

In fact, this scaffold constituted a portion of a penal 
machine, which now, for two or three generations past, 
has been merely historical and traditionary among us, 
but was held, in the old time, to be as effectual an agent, 
in the promotion of good citizenship, as ever was the 
guillotine among the terrorists of France. It was, in 
short, the platform of the pillory ; and above it rose the 
framework of that instrument of discipline, so fash- 
ioned as to confine the human head in its tight grasp, 
and thus hold it up to the public gaze. The very ideal 
of ignominy was embodied and made manifest in this 
contrivance of wood and iron. There can be no out- 
rage, methinks, against our common nature, — whatever 


THE MARKET-PL* ofc. 


6a 


be the delinquencies of the individual, — no outrage 
more flagrant than to forbid the culprit to hide his face 
for shame ; as it was the essence of this punishment to 
do. In Hester Prynne’s instance, however, as not un- 
frequency in other cases, her sentence bore, that she 
should stand a certain time upon the platform, but with- 
out undergoing that gripe about the neck and confine- 
ment of the head, the proneness to which was the most 
devilish characteristic of this ugly engine. Knowing 
well her ]5art, she ascended a flight of wooden steps, and 
was thus displayed to the surrounding multitude, at 
about the height of a man’s shoulders above the street. 

Had there been a Papist among the crowd of Puritans, 
he might have seen in this beautiful woman, so pictur- 
esque in her attire and mien, and with the infant at her 
bosom, an object to remind him of the image of Divine 
Maternity, which so many illustrious painters have vied 
with one another to represent ; something which should 
remind him, indeed, but only by contrast, of that sacred 
image of sinless motherhood, whose infant was to redeem 
the world. Here, there was the taint of deepest sin in 
the most sacred quality of human life, working such 
effect, that the world was only the darker for this 
woman’s beauty, and the more lost for the infant that 
she had borne. 

The scene was not without a mixture of awe, such 
as must always invest the spectacle of guilt and shame 
in a feuow-creature, before society shall have grown 
corrupt enough to smile, instead of shuddering, at it. 
The witnesses of Hester Prynne’s disgrace had not yet 
passed beyond their simplicity. They were stem enough 
to look upon her death, had that been the sentence, wun 


64 


THE SCARLET LETTER. 


out a mirmur at its severity, but had none of the heart- 
lessness of another social state, which would find only a 
theme for jest in an exhibition like the present. Even 
had there been a disposition to turn the matter into ridi- 
cule, it must have been repressed and overpowered by 
the solemn presence of men no less dignified than the 
Governor, and several of his counsellors, a judge, a gen- 
eral, and the ministers of the town ; all of whom sat or 
stood in a balcony of the meeting-house, looking down 
upon the platform. When such personages could con- 
stitute a part of the spectacle, without risking the maj- 
esty or reverence of rank and office, it was safely to be 
inferred that the infliction of a legal sentence would 
have an earnest and effectual meaning. Accordingly, 
the crowd was sombre and grave. The unhappy culprit 
sustained herself as best a woman might, under the 
heavy weight of a thousand unrelenting eyes, all fast- 
ened upon her, and concentrated at her bosom. It was 
almost intolerable to be borne. Of an impulsive and 
passionate nature, she had fortified herself to encounter 
the stings and venomous stabs of public contumely, 
wreaking itself in every variety of insult; but there 
was a quality so much more terrible in the solemn mood 
of the popular mind, that she longed rather to behold all 
those rigid countenances contorted with scornful merri 
ment, and herself the object. Had a roar of laughter 
burst from the multitude, — each man, each woman, 
each ittle shrill-voiced child, contributing their individ- 
ual parts, — Hester Prynne might have repaid them all 
with a bitter and disdainful smile. But, under the leaden 
infliction which it was her doom to endure, she felt at 
moments, as if she must needs shriek out with the full 


TIIE MARKET-PLACE. 


65 


power of her lungs, and cast herself from the scaffold 
down upon the ground, or else go mad at once. 

Yet there were intervals when the whole scene, in 
which she was the most conspicuous object, seemed to 
vanish from her eyes, or, at least, glimmered indistinctly 
before them, like a mass of imperfectly shaped and spec* 
tral images. Her mind, and especially her memory, waa 
pretematurally active, and kept bringing up other scene? 
than this roughly hewn street of a little town, on the 
edge of the Western wilderness ; other faces than were 
lowering upon her from beneath the brims of those stee- 
ple-crowned hats. Reminiscences, the most trifling and 
immaterial, passages of infancy and school-days, sports, 
childish quarrels, and the little domestic traits of her 
maiden years, came swarming back upon her, inter- 
mingled with recollections of whatever was gravest in 
her subsequent life ; one picture precisely as vivid as 
another ; as if all were of similar importance, or all alike 
a play. Possibly, it was an instinctive device of her 
spirit, to relieve itself, by the exhibition of these phantas- 
magoric forms, from the cruel weight and hardness of 
the reality. 

Be that as it might, the scaffold of the pillory was a 
p;irt of view that revealed to Hester Prynne the entire 
track along which she had been treading, since her happy 
infancy. Standing on that miserable eminence, she saw 
again her native village, in Old England, and her pater- 
nal home ; a decayed house of gray stone, with a pov- 
erty-stricken aspect, but retaining a half-obliterated shield 
of arms over the portal, in token of antique gentility. 
She saw her father’s face, with its bal 1 brow, and rev- 
erend w r hite beard, that flowed over the old-fashioned 
5 


r»6 


THE SCARLET LETTER. 


Elizabethan ruff; her mother’s, too, with the look of 
heedful and anxious love which it always wore in her 
remembrance, and which, even since her death, had so 
often laid the impediment of a gentle remonstrance in 
her daughter’s pathway. She saw her own face, glow- 
ing with girlish beauty, and illuminating all the interior 
of the dusky mirror in which she had been wont to gaze 
at it. There she beheld another countenance, of a man 
well stricken in years, a pale, thin, scholar-like visage, 
with eyes dim and bleared by the lamp-light that had 
served them to pore over many ponderous books. Yet 
those same bleared optics had a strange, penetrating 
power, when it was their owner’s purpose to read the 
human soul. This figure of the study and the cloister, as 
Hester Prynne’s womanly fancy failed not to recall, was 
slightly deformed, with the left shoulder a trifle higher 
than the right. Next rose before her, in memory’s pic- 
ture-gallery, the intricate and narrow thoroughfares, the 
tall, gray houses, the huge cathedrals, and the public 
edifices, ancient in date and quaint in architecture, of a 
Continental city; where a new life had awaited her, still 
in connection with the misshapen scholar ; a new life, 
but feeding itself on time-worn materials, like a tuft of 
green moss on a crumbling wall. Lastly, in lieu of 
these shifting scenes, came back the rude market-place 
of the Puritan settlement, with all the townspeople as- 
sembled and levelling their stem regards at Hester 
Prynne, — yes, at herself, — who stood on the scaffold 
of the pillory, an infant on her arm, and the letter A, in 
scarlet, fantastically embroidered with gold thread, upon 
her bosom ! 

Could it be true ? She clutched the child so fiercely 


THE MARKET-PLACE. 


61 


to hei breast, that it sent forth a cry ; she turned hei < yes 
downward at the scarlet letter, and even touched it witn 
her finger, to assure herself that the infant and the 
shame were real. Yes' - - £.ese were her realities,— 
«U else had vanished * 


TTIE SCARLET LETTER 


^8 


ITT. 

THE RECOGNITION. 

From this intense consciousness of being the object 
of severe and universal observation, the wearer of the 
scarlet letter was at length relieved, by discerning, on 
the outskirts of the crowd, a figure which irresistibly 
took possession of her thoughts. An Indian, in , his 
native garb, was standing there ; but the red men were 
not so infrequent visitors of the English settlements, 
that one of them would have attracted any notice from 
Hester Pryrme, at such a time; much less would he 
have excluded all other objects and ideas from her mind. 
By the Indian’s side, and evidently sustaining a com- 
panionship with him, stood a white man, clad in a 
strange disarray of civilized and savage costume. 

He was small in stature, with a furrowed visage, 
which, as yet, could hardly be termed aged. There was 
a remarkable intelligence in his features, as of a person 
who had so cultivated his mental part that it could not 
fail to mould the physical to itself, and become manifest 
by unmistakable tokens. Although, by a seemingly care- 
less arrangement of his heterogeneous garb, he had 
endeavored to conceal or abate the peculiarity, it was 
sufficiently evident to Hester Prynne, that one of this 
man’s shoulders rose higher than the other. Again, at 
the first instant of perceiving that thin visage, and the 
slight deformity of the figure, she pressed her infant tc 
her bosom, with so convulsive a force that the poor babe 


T1IE RECOGNITION. 




altered another cry of pain. But the mother did not 
seem to hear it. 

At his arrival in the market-place, and some time 
before she saw him, the stranger had bent his eyes on 
Hester Prynne. It was carelessly, at first, like a man 
chiefly accustomed to look inward, and to whom external 
matters a~e of little value and import, unless they bear 
relation to something within his mind. Very soon, how- 
ever, his look became keen and penetrative. A writhing 
horror twisted itself across his features, like a snake 
gliding swiftly over them, and making one little pause, 
with all its wreathed intervolutions in open sight. His 
face darkened with some powerful emotion, which, nev- 
ertheless, he so instantaneously controlled by an effort 
of his will, that, save at a single moment, its expression 
might have passed for calmness. After a brief space, 
the convulsion grew almost imperceptible, and finally 
subsided into the depths of his nature. When he found 
the eyes of Hester Prynne fastened on his own, and 
saw that she appeared to recognize him, he slowly and 
calmly raised his finger, made a gesture with it in the 
air, and laid it on his lips. 

Then, touching the shoulder of a townsman who stood 
next to him, he addressed him, in a formal and courteous 
manner. 

“ I pray you, good Sir,” said he, who is this woman ? 
— •and wherefore is she here set up to public shame ? ” ' 

“ You must needs be a stranger in this region, friend,” 
answered the townsman, looking curiously at the ques- 
tioner and his savage companion, “ else you would 
surely have heard of Mistress Hester Prynne, and hot 


TV 


THE SCARLET LETTER. 


evil doings. She hath raised a great scandal, I promise 
you, in godly Master Dimmesdale’s church.” 

“ \ ou say truly,” replied the other. “ I am a stran 
ger, and have been a wanderer, sorely against my will 
I have met with grievous mishaps by sea and land, and 
have been long held in bonds among the heathen-folk, 
to the southward ; and am now brought hither by thi3 
Indian, to be redeemed out of my captivity. Will it 
please you, therefore, to tell me of Hester Prynne’s, — 
have I her name rightly? — of this woman’s offences, 
and what has biought her to yonder scaffold ? ” 

“ Truly, friend ; and methinks it must gladden your 
heart, after your troubles and sojourn in the wilderness,” 
said the townsman, “ to find yourself, at length, in a 
land where iniquity is searched out, and punished in the 
sight of rulers and people ; as here in our godly New 
England. Yonder woman, Sir, you must know, was 
the wife of a certain learned man, English by birth, but 
who had long dwelt in Amsterdam, whence, some good 
time agone, he was minded to cross over and cast in his 
lot with us of the Massachusetts. To this purpose, he 
sent his wife before him, remaining himself to look after 
some necessary affairs. Marry, good Sir, in some two 
years, or less, that the woman has been a dweller here 
in Boston, no tidings have come of this learned gentle- 
man, Master Prynne; and his young wife, look you, 

being left to her own misguidance ” 

“Ah! — aha! — I conceive you,” said the stranger, 
with a bitter smile. “ So learned a man as you speak 
of should have learned this too in his books. And who, 
by your favor, Sir, may be the father of yonder babe — 


THE RECOGNITION. 


71 


it is some tnree or four months old, I should judge — 
which Mistress Prynne is holding in her arms?” 

“Of a truth, friend, that matter remaineth a riddle; 
and the Daniel who shall expound it is yet a-wanting,” 
answered the townsman. “ Madam Hester absolutely 
refuseth to speak, and the magistrates have laid their 
heads together in vain. Peradventure the guilty one 
stands looking on at this sad spectacle, unknown of man, 
and forgetting that God sees him.” 

“The learned man,” observed the stranger, with 
another smile, “should come himself, to look into the 
mystery.” 

“ It behooves him well, if he be still in life,” responded 
the townsman. “Now, good Sir, our Massachusetts 
magistracy, bethinking themselves that this woman is 
youthful and fair, and doubtless was strongly tempted to 
her fall; — and that, moreover, as is most likely, her 
husband may be at the bottom of the sea ; — they have 
not been bold to put in force the extremity of our right- 
eous law against her. The penalty thereof is death. 
But in their great mercy and tenderness of heart, they 
have doomed Mistress Prynne to stand only a space of 
three hours on the platform of the pillory, and then and 
thereafter, for the remainder of her natural life, to wear 
a mark of shame upon her bosom.” 

‘A wise sentence!” remarked the stranger, gravely 
bowing his head. “ Thus she will be a living sermon 
against sin, until the ignominious letter be engraved 
upon her tomb-stone. It irks me, nevertheless, that the 
partner of her iniquity should not, at least, stand on the 
scaffold by her side. But he will be known! — he wil/ 
be known ! — he will be known! ” 


72 


THE SCARLET LETTER. 


He bowed courteously to the communicative towns- 
man, and, whispering a few words to his Indian attend- 
ant, they both made their way through the crowd. 

While this passed, Hester Prynne had been standing 
on her pedestal, still with a fixed gaae towards the 
stranger ; so fixed a gaze, that, at moments of intense 
absorption, all other objects in the visible world seemea 
to vanish, leaving only him and her. Such an inter- 
view, perhaps, would have been more terrible than even 
to meet him as she now did, with the hot, midday sun 
burning down upon her face, and lighting up its shame ; 
with the scarlet token of infamy on her breast; with 
the sin-born infant in her arms : with a whole people, 
drawn forth as to a festival, staring at the features that 
should have been seen only in the quiet gleam of the 
fireside, in the happy shadow of a home, or beneath a 
matronly veil, at church. Dreadful as it was, she was 
conscious of a shelter in the presence of these thousand 
witnesses. It was better to stand thus, with so many 
oetwixt him and her, than to greet him, face to face, they 
two alone. She fled for refuge, as it were, to the pub- 
lic exposure, and dreaded the moment when its protection 
should be withdrawn from her. Involved in these 
thoughts, she scarcely heard a voice behind her, until it 
had repeated her name more than once, in a loud and 
solemn tone, audible to the whole multitude. 

“ Hearken unto me, Hester Prynne ! ” said the voice. 

It has already been noticed, that directly over the plat- 
form on which Hester Prynne stood was a kind of 
balcony, or open gallery, appended to the meeting-house. 
It was the place whence proclamations were wont to be 
made, amidst an assemblage of the magistracy, with all 


THE RECOGNITION. 


73 


the ceremoniiil that attended such public observances in 
those days. Here, to witness the scene which we arc 
describing, sat Governor Bellingham himself, with fom 
sergeants about his chair, bearing halberds, as a guard of 
nonor. He wore a dark feather in his hat, a border of 
embroidery on his cloak, and a black velvet tunic beneath ; 
a gentleman advanced in years, with a hard experience 
written in his wrinkles. He was not ill fitted to be the 
head and representative of a community, which owed its 
origin and progress, and its present state of development, 
not to the impulses of youth, but to the stern and tempered 
energies of manhood, and the sombre sagacity of age ; 
accomplishing so much, precisely because it imagined 
and hoped so little. The other eminent characters, by 
whom the chief ruler was surrounded, were distinguished 
by a dignity of mien, belonging to a period when the 
forms of authority were felt to possess the sacredness of 
Divine institutions. They were, doubtless, good men, 
just, and sage. But, out of the whole human family, it 
would not have been easy to select the same number of 
wise and virtuous persons, who should be less capable 
of sitting in judgment on an erring woman’s heart, and 
disentangling its mesh of good and evil, than the sages 
of rigid aspect towards whom Hester Prynne now turned 
her face. She seemed conscious, indeed, that whatever 
sympathy she might expect lay in the larger and w f arme* 
heart of the multitude ; for, as she lifted her eyes towards 
the balcony, the unhappy woman grew pale and trembled. 

The voice which had called her attention was that of 
the reverend and famous John Wilson, the eldest clergy- 
man of Boston, a great scholar, like most of his contem- 
poraries in the profession, and withal a man of kind and 


74 


THE SCARLET LETTER. 


genial spirit. This last attribute, however, had been less 
carefully developed than his intellectual gifts, and wa? 
in truth, rather a matter of shame than self-con gratu la 
tion with him. There he stood, with a border of grizzled 
locks beneath his skull-cap ; while his gray eyes, accus 
tomed to the shaded light of his study, were winking, 
like those of Hester’s infant, in the unadulterated sun- 
shine. He looked like the darkly engraved portraits 
which we see prefixed to old volumes of sermons ; and 
had no more right than one of those portraits would have, 
to step forth, as he now did, and meddle with a question 
of human guilt, passion and anguish. 

“ Hester Prynne,” said the clergyman, “ I have striven 
with my young brother here, under whose preaching of 
the word you have been privileged to sit,” — here Mr. 
Wilson laid his hand on the shoulder of a pale young 
man beside him, — “I have sought, I say, to persuade 
this godly youth, that he should deal with you, here in 
the face of Heaven, and before these wise and upright 
rulers, and in hearing of all the people, as touching the 
vileness and blackness of your sin. Knowing your nat- 
ural temper better than I, he could the better judge what 
arguments to use, whether of tenderness or terror, such 
as might prevail over your hardness and obstinacy ; inso- 
much that you should no longer hide the name of him 
who tempted you to this grievous fall. But he opposes 
to me, (with a young man’s over-softness, albeit wise 
Deyond his years,) that it were wronging the very nature 
of woman to force her to lay open her heart’s secrets in 
such broad daylight, and in presence of so great a mul- 
titude. Truly, as I sought to convince him, the shame 
lay in the commission of the sin, and not in the showing 


of it forth. 
Dimmesdale 
this poor sinr 
There was 
gnd occupant 
gave expressi< 
tive voice, alt 
youthful clerg 
“Good Mas, 
bility of this wo 
hooves you, t\v 
to confession, 
The dire 
whole cro 
young ch 
English 
into our 
fervor h 
his prof 
with a 
mela 
forcil 
in g 
resti 
scho" 
you 
fri 
v 


ought, which, 
s speech of an 

Reverend Mr. 
I so openly to 
the hearing of 
;oul, so sacred 
of his position 
xe his lips trem- 

•said Mr. W ilson. 
^re, as the wor- 
ine own, in 
2onfess the 

head, in 
vard. 
balcony 
ou hear- 
\tability 
■ soul’s 
’by be 
speak 
erer ! 
ss foi 
step 
on 
Me 
'o 
t 


THE RECOGNITION. 


71 


out an open triumph over the evil withir thee, \ nd th* 
sorrow without. Take heed how thou deniest to him — 
who, perchance, hath not the courage to grasp it for hiir ■ 
self — the bitter, but wholesome, cup that is now pre 
sented to thy lips ! ” 

The young pastor’s voice was tremulously sweet, rich, 
deep, and broken. The feeling that it so evidently man 
ifested, rather than the direct purport of the words, caused 
it to vibrate within all hearts, and brought the listeners 
into one accord of sympathy. Even the poor baby, ai 
Hester’s bosom, was affected by the same influence ; fo* 
it directed its hitherto vacant gaze towards Mr. Dimmes 
dale, and held up its little arms, with a half pleased, 
half plaintive murmur. So powerful seemed the minis- 
ter’s appeal, that the people could not believe but that 
Hester Prynne would speak out the guilty name ; or 
else that the guilty one himself, in whatever high or 
lowly place he stood, would be drawn forth by an inward 
and inevitable necessity, and compelled to ascend the 
scaffold. 

Hester shook her head. 

“ Woman, transgress not beyond the limits of Heaven’s 
mercy!” cried the Reverend Mr. Wilson, more harshly 
than before. “ That little babe hath been gifted with a 
voice, to second and confirm the counsel which thou hast 
heard. Speak out the name ! That, and thy repentance, 
may avail to take the scarlet letter off thy breast.” 

“ Never ! ” replied Hester Prynne, looking, not at Mr. 
Wilson, but into the deep and troubled eyes of the 
younger clergyman. “It is too deeply branded. Ye 
cannot take it off. And would that I might endure his 
agony, as well as mine !’’ 


78 


THE SCARLET LETTER. 


“ Speak, woman ! ” said another voice, coldly and 
sternly, proceeding from the crowd about the scaffold, 
“ Speak ; and give your ch II a father ! ” 

“ I will not speak ! ” answered Hester, turning pa*e as 
death, but responding to this voice, which she too surely 
recognized. “And my child must seek a heavenly 
Father; she shall never know an earthly one !” 

“ She will not speak ! ” murmured Mr. Dimmesdale, 
who, leaning over the balcony, with his hand upon his 
heart, had awaited the result of his appeal. He now 
d rew back, with a long respiration. “ W ondrous strength 
and generosity of a woman’s heart ! She will not 
speak ! ” 

Discerning the impracticable state of the poor culprit’s 
mind, the elder clergyman, who had carefully prepared 
himself for the occasion, addressed to the multitude a 
discourse on sin, in all its branches, but with continual 
reference to the ignominious letter. So forcibly did he 
dwell upon this symbol, for the hour or more during 
which his periods ware rolling over the people’s heads, 
that it assumed new terrors in their imagination, and 
seemed to derive its scarlet hue from the flames of the 
infernal pit. Hester Prynne, meanwhile, kept her place 
upon the pedestal of shame, with glazed eyes, and an air 
of weary indifference. She had borne, that morning, all 
that nature could endure ; and as her temperament was 
not of the order that escapes from too intense suffering 
by a swoon, her spirit could only shelter itself beneath a 
stony crust of insensibility, while the faculties ot animal 
life remained entire. In this state, the voice of the 
preacher thundered remorselessly, but unavailingly, upon 
her ears. The infant, during the latter portion of her 


THE RECOGNITION. 


79 


ordeal, pierced the air with its wailings and screams ; 
she strove to hush it, mechanically, but seemed scarcely 
to sympathize with its trouble. With the same hard 
demeanor, she was led back to prison, and vanished 
from the public gaze within its iron-clamped portal. 
It was whispered, by those who peered after her, that 
the scarlet letter threw a lurid gleam along the dark 
passage-way of the interior. 


80 


THE SCARLET LETTER. 


IY. 

THE INTERVIEW. 

After her return to the prison, Hester Prynne was 
found to be in a state of nervous excitement that de- 
manded constant watchfulness, lest she should perpetrate 
violence on herself, or do some half-frenzied mischief to 
the poor babe. As night approached, it proving impos- 
sible to quell her insubordination by rebuke or threats 
of punishment, Master Brackett, the jailer, thought fit 
1o introduce a physician. He described him as a man of 
skill in all Christian modes of physical science, and like- 
wise familiar with whatever the savage people could 
teach, in respect to medicinal herbs and roots that grew 
in the forest. To say the truth, there was much need 
of professional assistance, not merely for Hester herself, 
but still more urgently for the child ; who, drawing its 
sustenance from the maternal bosom, seemed to have 
drank in with it all the turmoil, the anguish and de- 
spair, which pervaded the mother’s system. It now 
writhed in convulsions of pain, and was a forcible type, 
in its little frame, of the moral agony which Hester 
Prynne had borne throughout the day. 

Closely following the jailer into the dismal apartment 
appeared that individual, of singular aspect, whose pres- 
ence in the crowd had been of such deep interest to the 
wearer of the scarlet letter. He was lodged in the prison, 
not as suspected of any offence, but as the most conven- 
ient and suitable mode of disposing of him, until the mag- 


THE INTERVIEW. 


81 


Mtrates should have conferred with the Indian sagamores 
respecting his ransom. His name was announced as 
Roger Chillingworth. The jailer, after ushering him 
into the room, remained a moment, marvelling at the 
comparative q uiet that followed his entrance ; for Hester 
Prynne had immediately become as still as death, 
although the child continued to moan. 

“ Prithee, friend, leave me alone with my patient,” 
said the practitioner. “ Trust me, good jailer, you shall 
briefly have peace in your house ; and, I promise you, 
Mistress Prynne shall hereafter be more amenable to just 
authority than you may have found her heretofore.” 

“ Nay, if your worship can accomplish that,” answered 
Master Brackett, “ I shall own you for a man of skill 
indeed ! Verily, the woman hath been like a possessed 
one ; and there lacks little, that I should take in hand to 
drive Satan out of her with stripes.” 

The stranger had entered the room with the charac- 
t -ristic quietude of the profession to which he announced 
himself as belonging. Nor did his demeanor change, 
when the withdrawal of the prison-keeper left him face 
to face with the woman, whose absorbed notice of him, 
in the crowd, had intimated so close a relation between 
himself and her. His first care was given to the child ; 
whose cries, indeed, as she lay writhing on the trundle- 
bed, made it of peremptory necessity to postpone all other 
business to the task of soothing her. He examined the 
infant carefully, and then proceeded to unclasp a leath- 
ern case, which he took from beneath his dress. It ap- 
peared to contain medical preparations, one of which he 
mingled with a cup of water. 

“ My old studies in alchemy,” observed he in ’ m; 


82 


THE SCARLET LETTER. 


sojourn, for above a year past, among a people well versed 
in the kindly properties of simples, have made a better 
Dhysician of me than many that claim the medical degree. 
Here, woman ! The child is yours, — she is none of 
mine, — neither will she recognize my voice or aspect as 
a father’s. Administer this draught, therefore, with 
thine own hand ” 

Hester repelled the offered medicine, at the same time 
gazing with strongly marked apprehension into liis face. 

“ Wouldst thou avenge thyself on the innocent babe ? ” 
whispered she. 

“Foolish woman!” responded the physician, half 
coldly, half soothingly. “ What should ail me, to harm 
this misbegotten and miserable babe ? The medicine is 
potent for good ; and were it my child, — yea, mine own, 
as well as thine ! — I could do no better for it.” 

As she still hesitated, being, in fact, in no reasonable 
state of mind, he took the infant in his arms, and him- 
self administered the draught. It soon proved its efficacy, 
and redeemed the leech’s pledge. The moans of the 
little patient subsided ; its convulsive tossings gradually 
ceased; and, in a few moments, as is the custom of 
young children after relief from pain, it sank into a pro- 
found and dewy slumber. The physician, as he had a 
fair right to be termed, next bestowed his attention on 
the mother. With calm and intent scrutiny, he felt her 
pulse, looked into her eyes, — a gaze that made her heart 
shrink and shudder, because so familiar, and yet so 
strange and cold, — and, finally, satisfied with his inves- 
tigation, proceeded to mingle another draught. 

“ I know not Lethe nor Nepenthe,” remarked he ; “ but 
[ have learned many new secrets in the wilderness, and 


THE INTERVIEW. 


63 


here is one of them, — a recipe that an Indian taught 
me, in requital of some lessons of my own, that were as 
old as Paracelsus. Drink it ! It may be less soothing 
than a sinless conscience. That I cannot give thee. But 
twill calm the swell and heaving of thy passion, like oil 
thrown on the waves of a tempestuous sea.” 

He presented the cup to Hester, who received it with 
a slow, earnest look into his face ; not precisely a look of 
fear, yet full of d mbt and questioning, as to what his 
purposes might be. She looked also at her slumbering 
child. 

“I have thought of death,” said she, — “have wished 
for it, — would even have prayed for it, were it fit that 
such as I should pray for anything. Yet, if death be in 
this cup, I bid thee think again, ere thou beholdest me 
quaff it. See ! It is even now at my lips.” 

“ Drink, then,” replied he, still with the same cold 
composure. “Dost thou know me so little, Hester 
Prynne? Are my purposes wont to be so shallow? 
E ^en if I imagine a scheme of vengeance, what could I 
do better for my object than to let thee live, — than to 
give thee medicines against all harm and peril of life, — 
so that this burning shame may still blaze upon thy 
bosom ? ” As he spoke, he laid his long forefinger on 
the scarlet letter, which forthwith seemed tc scorch into 
Hester’s breast, as if it had been red-hot. He noticed 
her involuntary gesture, and smiled. “ Live, therefore, 
and bear about thy doom with thee, in the eyes of men 
and women, — in the eyes of him whom thou didst call 
thy husband, — in the eyes of yonder child! And, that 
thou mayest live, take off this draught.” 

Without further expostulation or delay Hester Prynne 


84 


THE SCARLET LETTER. 


drained the cup, and, at the motion of the man of skil 
seated herself on the bed whore the child was sleeping; 
while ho drew the only chair which the room afforded, 
and took his own seat beside her. She could not but 
tremble at these preparations ; for she felt that — having 
now done a*l that humanity, or principle, or, if so it were, 
a refined cruelty, impelled him to do, for the relief of 
physical suffering — he was next to treat with her as the 
man whom she had most deeply and irreparably injured. 

“ Hester,” said he, “ I ask not wherefore, nor how, thou 
hast fallen into the pit, or say, rather, thou hast ascended 
to the pedestal of infamy, on which I found thee. The 
reason is not far to seek. It was my folly, and thy weak- 
ness. I, — a man of thought, — the book-worm of great 
libraries, — a man already in decay, having given my 
best years to feed the hungry dream of knowledge, — 
what had I to do with youth and beauty like thine own ■ 
Misshapen from my birth-hour, how could I delude my- 
self with the idea that intellectual gifts might veil physi- 
cal deformity in a young girl’s fantasy ! Men call me 
wise. If sages were ever wise in their own behoof, 1 
might have foreseen all this. I might have known that 
ns I came out of the vast and dismal forest, and entered 
this settlement of Christian men, the very first object to 
meet my eyes would be thyself, Hester Prynne, standing 
up, a statue of ignominy, before the people. Nay, from 
the moment when we came down the old church-steps 
together, a married pair, I might have beheld the bale-fire 
of that scarlet letter blazing at the end of our path ! ” 

" Thou knowest,” said Hester, — for, depressed as she 
was, she could not endure this last quiet staV at the token 


THU INTERVIEW. 


85 


of her shame, — “ thou knowest that I was frank with 
thee. I felt no love, nor feigned any.” 

“ True,” replied he. “ It was my folly ! I have said 
it. But, up to that epoch of my life, I had lived in vain. 
The world had been so cheerless ! My heart was a hal> 
itation large enough for many guests, but lonely and chill, 
and without a household fire. I longed to kindle one ! 
It seemed not so wild a dream, — old as I was, and som- 
bre as I was, and misshapen as I was, — that the simple 
bliss, which is scattered far and wide, for all mankind to 
gather up, might yet he mine. And so, Hester, I drew 
thee into my heart, into its innermost chamber, and 
sought to warm thee by the warmth which thy present e 
made there ! ” 

“ I have greatly wronged thee,” murmured Hester. 

“ We have wronged each other,” answered he. “ Mine 
was the first wrong, when I betrayed thy budding youth 
into a false and unnatural relation with my decay. 
Therefore, as a man who has not thought and philoso- 
phized in vain, I seek no vengeance, plot no evil against 
thee. Between thee and me, the scale hangs fairly bal- 
anced. But, Hester, the man lives who has wronged us 
both! Who is he?” 

“ Ask me not ! ” replied Hester Prynne, looking firmly 
into his face. “ That thou shalt never know ! ” 

“Never, sayest thou?” rejoined he, with a smile of 
dark and self-relying intelligence. “ Never know him ! 
Believe me, Hester, there are few things, — whether in 
ihe outward world, or, to a certain depth, in the invisible 
spheie of thought, — few things hidden from the man 
who devotes himself earnestly and unreservedly to the 
solution of a mystery. Thou mayest cover up thy secret 


86 


"HE SCARLET LETT 


trom the prying multitude. Thou mayest conceal it, toc» 
from the ministers and magistrates, even as thou didst 
this day, when they sought to wrench the name out ol 
thy heart, and give thee a partner on thy pedestal. But, 
us for me, I come to the inquest with other senses the n 
they possess. I shall seek this man, as I have sought 
truth in books ; as I have sought gold in alchemy. 
There is a sympathy that will make me conscious of him. 
I shall see him tremble. I shall feel myself shudder, 
suddenly and unawares. Sooner or later, he must needs 
be mine ! ” 

The eyes of the wrinkled scholar glowed so intensely 
upon her, that Hester Prynne clasped her hands over her 
heart, dreading lest he should read the secret there at 
once. 

“ Thou wilt not reveal his name ? Not the less he is 
mine,” resumed he, with a look of confidence, as if des- 
tiny were at one with him. “ He bears no letter of in- 
famy wrought into his garment, as thou dost ; but I shall 
read it on his heart. Yet fear not for him ! Think not 
that I shall interfere with Heaven’s own method of retri- 
bution, or, to my own loss, betray him to the gripe of 
human law. Neither do thou imagine that I shall con- 
trive aught against his life ; no, nor against his fame, if, 
as I judge, he be a man of fair repute. Let him live ! 
Let him hide himself in outward honor, if he may ! 
Not the less he shall be mine ! ” 

“ Thy acts are like mercy,” said Hester, bewildered 
and appalbd. “ But thy words interpret thee as a ter- 
ror!” 

“ One thing, thou that wast my wife, I would enjoin 
upon thee, ' continued the scholar. “ Thou hast kept the 


THE INTERVIEW. 


87 

secret of thy paramour. Keep, likewise, mine ! There 
are none in this land that know me. Breathe not, to any 
human soul, that thou didst ever call me husband ! Here, 
on this wild outskirt of the earth, I shall pitch my tent ; 
fc:, elsewhere a, wanderer, and isolated from human in- 
terests. I find here a woman, a man, a child, amongst 
whom and myself there exist the closest ligaments. No 
matter whether of love or hate ; no matter whether of 
right or wrong ! Thou and thine, Hester Prynne, belong 
to me. My home is where thou art, and where he is. 
But betray me not ! ” 

“ Wherefore dost thou desire it ? ” inquired Hester, 
shrinking, she hardly knew why, from this secret bond. 
“ Why not announce thyself openly, and cast me off at 
once ? ” 

“ It may be,” he replied, “ because I will not encounter 
the? dishonor that besmirches the husband of a faithless 
woman. It may be for other reasons. Enough, it is my 
purpose to live and die unknown. Let, therefore, thy 
husband be to the world as one already dead, and of 
whom no tidings shall ever come. Recognize me not, 
by word, by sign, by look ! Breathe not the secret, 
above all, to the man thou wottest of. Should st thou fail 
ne in this, beware! His fame, his position, his life, wiU 
be in my hands. Beware ! ” 

“ I will keep thy secret, as I have his,” said Hester. 

“ Swear it ! ” rejoined he. 

And she took the oath. 

“ And now, Mistress Prynne,” said old Roger Chil- 
’ingworth, as he was hereafter to be named, “I leave 
thee alone ; alone with thy infant, and the scarlet letter ! 
How is it, Hester? Doth thy sentence bind thee to 


88 


THE SCARLET LETTER. 


wear the token in thy sleep ? Art thou not afraid of 
nightmares and hideous dreams ?” 

“Why dost thou smile so at me?” inquired Hester 
troubled at the expression of his eyes. “ Art thou like 
the Black Man that haunts the forest round about us ? 
Hast thou enticed me into a bond that will prove the 
ruin of my soul?” 

“Not thy soul,’ he answered, with another smile. 
“ No, not thine!” 


HESTER AT IiER NEEDLE. 


fif 


V. 

HESTER AT HER NEEDLE. 

Hestlr Prynne’s term of confinement was now at 
an end. Her prison-door was throwfi open, and she 
came forth into the sunshine, which, falling on all 
alike, seemed, to her sick and morbid heart, as if meant 
for no other purpose than to reveal the scarlet letter on 
her breast. Perhaps there was a more real torture in 
her first unattended footsteps from the threshold of the 
prison, than even in the procession and spectacle that 
have been described, where she was made the common 
infamy, at which all mankind was summoned to point 
its finger. Then, she was supported by an unnatural 
tension of the nerves, and by all the combative energy 
of her character, which enabled her to convert the scene 
into a kind of lurid triumph. It was, moreover, a sepa- 
rate and insulated event, to occur but once in her life- 
time, and to meet which, therefore, reckless of economy, 
she might call up the vital strength that would have 
sufficed for many quiet years. The very law that con- 
demned her — a giant of stern features, but with vigor 
tc support, as well os to annihilate, in his iron arm — 
had held her up, through the terrible ordeal of her 
ignominy. But now, with this unattended walk from 
her prison-door, began the daily custom ; and she must 
either sustain and carry it forward by the ordinary 
resources of her nature, or sink beneath it. She 
could no loi ger borrow from the future to help he? 


THE SCARLET LETTER. 


90 


through the present grief. To-morrow would bring its 
own trial with it ; so would the next day, and so would 
the next; each its own trial, and yet the very same that 
was now so unutterably grievous to bo borne. The 
days of the far-off future would toil onward, still with 
the same burden for her to take up, and bear along with 
her, but never to fling down ; for the accumulating days, 
and added years, would pile up their misery upon the 
heap of shame. Throughout them all, giving up her 
individuality, she would become the general symbol at 
which the preacher and moralist might point, and in which 
they might vivify and embody their images of woman’s 
frailty and sinful passion. Thus the young and pure 
would be taught to look at her, with the scarlet letter 
flaming on her breast, — at her, the child of honorable 
parents, — at her, the mother of a babe, that would 
hereafter be a woman, — at her, who had once been 
innocent, — as the figure, the body, the reality of sin. 
And over her grave, the infamy that she must carry 
thither would be her only monument. 

It may seem marvellous, that, with the world before 
her, — kept by no restrictive clause of her condemnation 
within the limits of the Puritan settlement, so remote 
and so obscure, — free to return to her birth-place, or to 
any other European land, and there hide her character 
and identity under a new exterior, as completely as if 
emerging into another state of bein' , — and having also 
the passes of the dark, inscrutr a forest open to her, 
where the w r ildness of her nature might assimilate 
itself with a people whose customs and life were alien 
from the law that had condemned her, — it may seem 
marvellous, that this woman should still call that place 


TESTER AT HER NEEDLE. 


91 


hei home, where, and where only, she must needs be 
the type of shame. But there is a fatality, a feeling so 
irresistible and inevitable that it has the force of doom, 
vhich almost invariably compels human beings to linger 
around and haunt, ghost-like, the spot where some great 
and marked event has given the color to their lifetime ; 
and still the more irresistibly, the darker the tinge that 
saddens it. Her sin, her ignominy, were the roots 
which she had struck into the soil. It was as if a 
new birth, with stronger assimilations than the first, 
had converted the forest-land, still so uncongenial to 
every other pilgrim and wanderer, into Hester Prynne’s 
wild and dreary, but life-long home. All other scenes 
of earth — even that village of rural England, where 
happy infancy and stainless maidenhood seemed yet to 
be in her mother’s keeping, like garments put off long 
ago — were foreign to her, in comparison. The chain 
that bound her here was of iron links, and galling to hei 
inmost soul, but could never be broken. 

It might be, too, — doubtless it was so, although she 
hid the secret from herself, and grew pale whenever it 
struggled out of her heart, like a serpent from its hole, 
— it might be that another feeling kept her within the 
scene and pathway that had been so fatal. There 
dwelt, there trode the feet of one with whom she 
deemed herself connected in a union, that, unrecognized 
on earth, would bring them together before the bar cf 
final judgment, and make that their marriage-altar, for 
a joint futurity of endless retribution. Over and over 
again, the tempter of souls had thrusi this idea upon 
Hester’s contemplation, and laughed at the passionate 
•ud desperate joy with which she seized, and then 


y2 THE scarlet lettik. 

Btrove to cast it from her. She barely looked the idea 
in the face, and hastened to bar it in its dungeon. 
What she compelled herself to believe, — what, finally, 
she reasoned upon, as her motive for continuing a resi- 
dent of New England, — was half a truth, and half a 
self-delusion. Here, she said to herself, had been the 
scene of her guilt, and here should be the scene of her 
earthly punishment ; and so, perchance, the torture of 
her daily shame would at length purge her soul, and 
work out another purity than that which she had lost ; 
more saint-like, because the result of martyrdom. 

Hester Prynne, therefore, did not flee. On the out- 
skirts of the town, within the verge of the peninsula, but 
not in close vicinity to any other habitation, there way 
a small thatched cottage. It had been built by an earlier 
settler, and abandoned, because the soil about it was too 
sterile for cultivation, while its comparative remoteness 
put it out of the sphere of that social activity which 
already marked the habits of the emigrants. It stood on 
the shore, looking across a basin of the sea at the forest- 
covered hills, towards the west. A clump of scrubby 
trees, such as alone grew on the peninsula, did not so 
much conceal the cottage from view, as seem to denote 
that here was some object which would fain have been, 
or at least ought to be, concealed. In this little, lone- 
some dwelling, with some slender means that she pos- 
sessed, and by the license of the magistrates, who still 
kept an inquisitorial watch over her, Hester established 
berself, with her infant child. A mystic shadow of 
suspicion immediately attached itself to the spot. Chil- 
dren, too young to comprehend wherefore this woman 
should be shut out from the sphere of human charities. 


IIESTER AT HER NEEDLE. 


9.1 


would creep nigh enough to behold her plying hei 
needle at the cottage-window, or standing in the door- 
way, or laboring in her little garden, or coming forth 
along the pathway that led townward ; and, discerning 
the scarlet letter on her breast, would scamper off with a 
strange, contagious fear. 

Lonely as was Hester’s situation, and without a 
friend on earth who dared to show himself, she, how- 
ever incurred no risk of want. She possessed an art 
that sufficed, even in a land that afforded comparatively 
little scope for its exercise, to supply food for her thriv- 
ing infant and herself. It was the art — then, as now’, 
almost the only one within a woman’s grasp — of 
needle-work. She bore on her breast, in the curiously 
embroidered letter, a specimen of her delicate and imag- 
inative skill, of which the dames of a court might gladly 
have availed themselves, to add the richer and more 
spiritual adornment of human ingenuity to their fabrics 
of silk and gold. Here, indeed, in the sable simplicity 
that generally characterized the Puritanic modes of dress, 
there might be an infrequent call for the finer produc- 
tions of her handiwork. Yet the taste of the age, de- 
manding whatever was elaborate in compositions of this 
kind, did not fail to extend its influence over our stern 
progenitors, who had cast behind them so many fashions 
which it might seem harder to dispense with. Public 
ceremonies, such as ordinations, the installation of 
magistrates, and all that could give majesty to the forms 
in which a new government manifested itself to the 
people, were, as a matter of policy, marked by a stately 
and well-conducted ceremonial, and a sombre, but yet 
a studied magnificence. Deep ruffs, painfully wrought 


94 


THE SCARLET LETTER. 


bands, and gorgeously embroidered gloves, were all 
deemed necessary to the official state of men assuming 
the reins of power ; and were readily allowed to indi- 
viduals dignified by rank or wealth, even while sump- 
tuary laws forbade .these and similar extravagances to 
the plebeian order. In the array of funerals, too, — 
whether for the apparel of the dead body, or to typify, 
by manifold emblematic devices of sable cloth and snowy 
lawn, the sorrow of the survivors, — there was a fre- 
quent and characteristic demand for such labor as Hes 
ter Prynne could supply. Baby -linen — for babies then 
wore robes of state — afforded still another possibility 
of toil and emolument. 

By degrees, nor very slowly, her handiwork became 
what would now be termed the fashion. Whether from 
commiseration for a woman of so miserable a destiny ; 
or from the morbid curiosity that gives a fictitious value 
even to common or worthless things; or by whatever 
other intangible circumstance was then, as now, sufficient 
to bestow, on some persons, what others might seek in 
vain ; or because Hester really filled a gap which must 
otherwise have remained vacant ; it is certain that she 
had ready and fairly requited employment for as many 
hours as she saw fit to occupy with her needle. Vanity, 
it may be, chose to mortify itself, by putting on, for 
ceremonials of pomp and state, the garments that had 
been wrought by her sinful hands. Her needle-work 
was seen on the ruff of the Governor; military men 
wore it on their scarfs, and the minister on his band ; it 
decked the baby’s little cap ; it was shut up, to be mil- 
dewed and moulder away, in the coffins of the dead. 
But it 3 not recorded that, in a single instance, her skill 


HESTER AT HER NEEDLE. % 

was called in aid to embroider the white veil which waa 
to cover the pure blushes of a bride. The exception 
indicated the ever relentless vigor with which society 
frowned upon her sin. 

Hester sought not to acquire anything beyond a sub- 
sistence, of the plainest and most ascetic description, for 
herself, and a simple abundance for her child. Her own 
dress was of the coarsest materials and the most sombre 
hue ; with only that one ornament, — the scarlet letter, 
— which it was her doom to wear. The child’s attire, 
on the other hand, was distinguished by a fanciful, or, we 
might rather say, a fantastic ingenuity, which served, 
indeed, to heighten the airy charm that early began to 
develop itself in the little girl, but which appeared to 
have also a deeper meaning. We may speak further 
of it hereafter. Except for that small expenditure in 
the decoration of her infant, Hester bestowed all her 
superfluous means in charity, on wretches less misera- 
ble than herself, and who not unfrequently insulted the 
hand that fed them. Much of the time, which she 
might readily have applied to the better efforts of her 
art, she employed in making coarse garments for the 
poor. It is probable that there was an idea of penance 
in this mode of occupation, and that she offered up a real 
sacrifice of enjoyment, in devoting so many hours to 
such rude handiwork. She had in her nature a rich, 
voluptuous, Oriental characteristic, — a taste for th8 
gorgeously beautiful, which, save in the exquisite pro- 
ductions of her needle, found nothing else, in all the 
possibilities of her life, to exercise itself upon. Women 
derive a pleasure, incomprehensible to the other sex, 
from the delicate toil of the needle. To Hester Piynne 


9G THE SCARLET LETTER. 

it might have been a mode of expressing, and there- 
fore soothing, the passion of her life. Like all other 
joys, she rejected it as sin. This morbid meddling of 
conscience with an immaterial matter betokened, it is to 
be feared, no genuine and steadfast penitence, but some- 
thing doubtful, something that might be deeply wrong, 
beneath. 

In this manner, Hester Prynne came to have a pai t 
to perform in the world. With her native energy of 
character, and rare capacity, it could not entirely cast 
her off, although it had set a mark upon her, more in- 
tolerable to a woman’s heart than that which branded 
the brow of Cain. In all her intercourse with society, 
however, there was nothing that made her feel as if she 
belonged to it. Every gesture, every word, and even 
the silence of those with whom she came in contact, 
implied, and often expressed, that she was banished, 
and as much alone as if she inhabited another sphere, 
or communicated with the common nature by other 
organs and senses than the rest of human kind. She 
stood apart from moral interests, yet close beside them, 
like a ghost that revisits the familiar fireside, and can 
no longer make itself seen or felt ; no more smile with 
■he household joy, nor mourn with the kindred sorrow ; 
or, should it succeed in manifesting its forbidden sympa- 
thy, awakening only terror and horrible repugnance. 
These emotions, in fact, and its bitterest scorn besides, 
seemed to be the sole portion that she retained in the 
universal heart. It was not an age of delicacy ; and 
her position, although she understood it well, and was 
in little danger of forgetting it, was often brought be- 
fore her vivid self-perception, like a new anguish, by 


HESTER AT HER NEEDLE. 


97 


/he rudest touch upon the tenderest spot. The poor, as 
we have already said, whom she sought out to be the 
objects of her bounty, often reviled the hand that was 
stretched forth to succor them. Dames of elevated 
rank, likewise, whose doors she entered in the way of 
her occupation, were accustomed to distil drops of bit 
temess into her heart ; sometimes through that alchemy 
of quiet malice, by which women can concoct a subtile 
poison from ordinary trifles ; and sometimes, also, by a 
coarser expression, that fell upon the sufferer’s defence- 
less breast like a rough blow upon an ulcerated wound. 
Hester had schooled herself long and well ; she never 
responded to these attacks, save by a flush of crimson 
that rose irrepressibly over her pale cheek, and again 
subsided into the depths of her bosom. She was patient, 
— a martyr, indeed, — but she forebore to pray for her 
enemies ; lest, in spite of her forgiving aspirations, the 
words of the blessing should stubbornly twist themselves 
into a curse. 

Continue lly, and in a thousand other ways, did she 
feel the innumerable throbs of anguish that had been 
so cunningly contrived for her by the undying, the 
ever-active sentence of the Puritan tribunal. Clergy* 
men paused in the street to address words of exhorta- 
tion, that brought a crowd, with its mingled grin and 
frown, around the poor, sinful woman. If she entered 
a church, trusting to share the Sabbath smile of the 
Universal Father, it was often her mishap to find her- 
self the text of the discourse. She grew to have a 
dread of children ; for they had imbibed from their 
parents a vague idea of something horrible in this dreary 
woman, gliding silently through the town, with never 
7 


98 


TIIE SCARLET LETTEfw. 


any compmion but one only child. Therefore, hrst 
allowing her to pass, they pursued her at a distance with 
shrill cries, and the utterance of a word that had no dis* 
tinct purport to their own minds, but was none the less 
terrible to her, as proceeding from lips that babbled it 
unconsciously. It seemed to argue so wide a diffusion 
sf her shame, that all nature knew of it ; it could have 
caused her no deeper pang, had the leaves of the trees 
whispered the dark story among themselves, — had 
the summer breeze murmured about it — had the wintry 
blast shrieked it aloud ! Another peculiar torture was 
felt in the gaze of a new eye. When strangers looked 
curiously at the scarlet letter, — and none ever failed to 
do so, — they branded it afresh into Hester’s soul ; so 
that, oftentimes, she could scarcely refrain, yet always 
did refrain, from covering the symbol with her hand. 
But then, again, an accustomed eye had likewise its own 
anguish to inflict. Its cool stare of familiarity was in- 
tolerable. From first to last, in short, Hester Prynne 
had always this dreadful agony in feeling a human eye 
upor. the token ; the spot never grew callous ; it seemed, 
on the contrary, to grow more sensitive with daily tor- 
ture. 

But sometimes, once in many days, or perchance in 
many months, she felt an eye — a human eye — upon 
the ignominious brand, that seemed to give a momentary 
relief, as if half of her agony were shared. The next 
instant, back it all rushed again, with still a deeper throb 
of pain ; for, in that brief interval, she had sinned anew 
Had Hester sinned alone ? 

Her imagination was somewhat affected, and, had she 
been if a softer moral and intellectual fibre, would have 


HESTEF. AT HER NEEDLE. 


99 


f>een still more so, by the strange and solitary anguish 
of her life. Walking to and fro, with those lonely foot* 
steps, in the little world with which she was outwardly 
connected, it now and then appeared to Hester, — if 
altogether fancy, it was nevertheless too potent to be re- 
sisted, — she felt or fancied, then, that the scarlet letter 
had endowed her with a new sense. She shuddered to 
believe, yet could not help believing, that it gave her a 
sympathetic knowledge of the hidden sin in other hearts. 
She was terror-stricken by the revelations that were thus 
made. What were they? Could they be other than 
the insidious whispers of the bad angel, who would fain 
have persuaded the struggling woman, as yet only half 
his victim, that the outward guise of purity was but a 
lie, and that, if truth were everywhere to be shown, a 
scarlet letter would blaze forth on many a bosom besides 
Hester Prynne’s ? Or, must she receive those intima- 
tions — so obscure, yet so distinct — as truth ? In all 
her miserable experience, there was nothing else so awful 
and so loathsome as this sense. It perplexed, as well as 
shocked her, by the irreverent inopportuneness of the oc- 
casions that brought it into vivid action. Sometimes the 
red infamy upon her breast would give a sympathetic 
throb, as she passed near a venerable minister or magis- 
trate, the model of piety and justice, to whom that age 
of antique reverence looked up, as to a mortal man in 
fellowship with angels. “ What evil thing is at hand ? ” 
would Hester say to herself. Lifting her reluctant eyes, 
there would be nothing human within the scope of view, 
sa ve the form of this earthly saint ! Again, a mystic 
sisterhood would contumaciously assert itself, as she met 
the sanctified frown of some matron, who, according to 


100 


THE SCARLET LETTER. 


the rumor of all tongues, had kept cold snow within he( 
bosom throughout life. That unsunned snow in the 
matron’s bosom, and the burning shame on Hester 
Prynne’s, — what had the two in common? Or, once 
more, the electric thrill would give her warning, — 
“ Behold, Hester, here is a companion ! ” — and, looking 
up, she would detect the eyes of a young maiden glancing 
at the scarlet letter, shyly and aside, and quickly averted 
with a faint, chill crimson in her cheeks ; as if her pu 
rity were somewhat sullied by that momentary glance 
O Fiend, whose talisman was that fatal symbol, woulds.* 
thou leave nothing, whether in youth or age, for thi? 
poor sinner to revere ? — such loss of faith is ever one 
of the saddest results of sin. Be it accepted as a proof 
that all was not corrupt in this poor victim of her own 
frailty, and man’s hard law, that Hester Prynne ye* 
struggled to b«l? r<e that no fellow-mortal was guiltv 
like herself. 

The vulgar who, in those dreary old times, were alwavs 
contributing p grotesque horror to what interested then 
imagination had a story about the scarlet letter whicn 
we migb' readily work up into a terrific legend. They 
averred, that the symbol was not mere scarlet cloth, 
tinged in an earthly dye-pot, but was red-hot with infer- 
nal fire, and could be seen glowing all alight, whenever 
Hester Prynne walked abroad in the night-time. And 
we must needs say, it seared Hester’s bosom so deeply, 
that perhaps there v/as more truth in the rumor than ouf 
molem incredulity may be inclined to admit- 


PEARL. 


101 


VI. 

PEARL. 

We habeas yet hardly spoken of the inlant; thal 
little creature, whose innocent life had sprung, by ths> 
inscrutable decree of Providence, a lovely and immor 
tal flower, out of the rank luxuriance of a guilty pas 
sion. How strange it seemsd to the sad woman, as she 
watched the growth, and the beauty that became every 
day more brilliant, and the intelligence that threw its 
, quivering sunshine over the tiny features of this child ! 
Her Pearl ! — For so had Hester called her; not as a 
name expressive of her aspect, which had nothing of the 
calm, white, unimpassioned lustre that would be indi- 
cated by the comparison. But she named the infant 
“ Pearl,” as being of great price, — purchased with all 
she had. — her mother’s only treasure ! How strange, 
indeed !j Man had marked this woman’s sin by a scarlet 
letter, which had such potent and disastrous efficacy that 
no human sympathy could reach her, save it were sinful 
like herself. God, as a direct consequence of the sin 
which man thus punished, had given her a lovely child, 
whose place was on that same dishonored bosom, to con- 
nect her parent forever with the race and descent of mor- 
tals, and to be finally a blessed soul in heaven ! Yet 
these thoughts affected Hester Prynne less with hope 
than apprehension. She knew that her deed had been 
evil ; she could have no faith, therefore, that its result 
wou .d be good. Day after day, she looked fearfully into 


102 


THE SCARLET LETTER. 


the child’s expanding nature ever dreading to detect 
«ome dark and wild peculiarity, that should correspond 
with the guiltiness to which she owed her being. 

Certainly, there was no physical defect. By its per- 
fect shape, its vig'U, and its natural dexterity in the use 
of all : ts untried limbs, the infant was worthy to have 
been brought forth in Eden ; worthy to have been left 
there, to oe the plaything of the angels, after the world’s 
first parents were driven out. The child had a native 
grace which does not invariably coexist with faultless 
beauty ; its attire, however simple, always impressed the 
beholder as if it were the very garb that precisely became 
it best. But little Pearl was not clad in rustic weeds. 
Her mother, with a morbid purpose that may be better 
understood hereafter, had bought the richest tissues that 
could be procured, and allowed her imaginative faculty 
its full play in the arrangement and decoration of the 
dresses which the child wore, before the public eye. So 
magnificent was the small figure, when thus arrayed, 
and such was the splendor of Pearl’s own proper beauty, 
shining through the gorgeous robes which might have 
extinguished a paler loveliness, that there was an abso- 
lute circle of radiance around her, on the darksome cot- 
tage floor. And yet a russet gown, torn and soiled with 
the child’s rude play, made a picture of her just as per- 
fect. Pearl’s aspect was imbued with a spell of infinite 
variety; in this one child there were many children, 
comprehending the full scope between the wild-flowe* 
prettiness of a peasant-baby, and the pomp, in little, o: 
an infant princess. Throughout all, however, there was 
a trait of passion, a certain depth of hue, which she 
never lost,- and if, in any of her changes, she had grown 


?r AYL. 


103 


•fointer 01 paler, she would have ceased to be herself — 
it would have been no longer Pearl ! 

This outward mutability indicated, and did not more 
than fairly express, the various properties of her inner 
life. Her nature appeared to possess depth, too, as well 
as variety ; but — or else Hester’s fears deceived her — 
it lacked reference and adaptation to the world into 
which she was bom. The child could not be made 
amenable to rules. In giving her existence, a great law 
nad been broken ; and the result was a being whose ele- 
ments were perhaps beautiful and brilliant, but all in 
disorder; or with an order peculiar to themselves, amidst 
which the point of variety and arrangement was difficult 
or impossible to be discovered. Hester could only ac- 
count for the child’s character — and even then most 
vaguely and imperfectly — by recalling what she herself 
nad been, during that momentous period while Pearl was 
imbibing her soul from the spiritual world, and her bodily 
frame from its material of earth. The mother’s impas- 
sioned state had been the medium through which were 
transmitted to the unborn infant the rays of its moral 
life ; and, however white and clear originally, they had 
taken the deep stains of crimson and gold, the fiery 
lustre, th 3 black shadow, and the untempered light, of 
the intervening substance. Above all, the warfare of 
Hester’s spirit, at that epoch, was perpetuated in Pearl. 
She could recognize her wild, desperate, defiant mood, 
the flightiness of her temper, and even some of the very 
cloud-shapes of gloom and despondency that had brooded 
in her heart. They were now illuminated by the morn- 
ing radiance of a young child’s disposition, but later in 


104 


THE SCARLET LETTER. 


the day of earthly existence, might be prolific of tilt 
storm and whirlwind. 

The' discipline of the family, in those days, was of a 
far more rigid kind than now. The frown, the harsh 
rebuke, the frequent application of the rod, enjoined by 
Scriptural authority, were used, not merely in the way 
of punishment for actual offences, but as a wholesome 
regimen for the growth and promotion of all childish 
virtues. Hester Prynne, nevertheless, the lonely mother 
of this one child, ran little risk of erring on the side of 
undue severity. Mindful, however, of her own errors 
and misfortunes, she early sought to impose a tender, 
but strict control over the infant immortality that was 
committed to her charge. But the task was beyond her 
skill. After testing both smiles and frowns, and proving 
that neither mode of treatment possessed any calculable 
influence, Hester was ultimately compelled to stand 
aside, and permit the child to be swayed by her own 
impulses. Physical compulsion or restraint was effect- 
ual, of course, while it lasted. As to any other kind of 
discipline, whether addressed to her mind or heart, little 
Pearl might or might not be within its reach, in accord- 
ance with the caprice that ruled the moment. Her 
mother, while Pearl was yet an infant, grew acquainted 
with a certain peculiar look, that warned her when it 
would be labor thrown away to insist, persuade, or plead. 
It was a look so intelligent, yet inexplicable, so perverse, 
sometimes so malicious, but generally accompanied by a 
wild flow of spirits, that Hester could not help question- 
ing, at such moments, whether Pearl was a human child, 
She seemed rather an airy sprite, which, after playing 
its fantastic sports for a little while upon the cottage 


PEARL. 


105 


floor, would flit away with a mocking smile. Whenever 
that look appeared in her wild, bright, deeply black eyes 
it invested her with a strange remoteness and intangi- 
bility ; it was as if she were hovering in the air and 
might vanish, like a glimmering light, that comes we 
know not whence, and goes we know not whither. Be- 
holding it, Hester was constrained to rush towards the 
child, — to pursue the little elf in the flight which she 
invariably began, — to snatch her to her bosom, with a 
close pressure and earnest kisses, — not so much from 
overflowing love, as to assure herself that Pearl was 
flesh and blood, and not utterly delusive. But Pearl’s 
laugh, when she was caught, though full of merriment 
and music, made her mother more doubtful than before. 

Heart-smitten at this bewildering and baffling spell, 
that so often came between herself and her sole treasure, 
whom she had bought so dear, and who was all her 
world, Hester sometimes burst into passionate tears. 
Then, perhaps, — for there was no foreseeing how it 
might affect her, — Pearl would frown, and clench her 
little fist, and harden her small features into a stem, un- 
sympathizing look of discontent. Not seldom, she would 
laugh anew, and louder than before, like a thing incapa- 
ble and unintelligent of human sorrow. Or — but this 
more rarely happened — she would be convulsed with a 
rage of grief, and sob out her love for her mother, in 
broken words, and seem intent on proving that she had 
a heart, by breaking it. Yet Hester was hardly safe in 
confiding herself to that gusty tenderness ; it passed, as 
suddenly as it came. Brooding over all these matters, 
die mother felt like one who has evoked a spirit, but, by 
some irregularity m the process of conjuration, lias failed 


106 


THE SCAB LET LETTER. 


to win the master-word that should control this ne*r and 
incomprehensible intelligence. Her only real comfort 
was when the child lay in the placidity of sleep. Then 
she was sure of her, and tasted hours of quiet, sad, deli- 
cious happiness; until — perhaps with that perverse ex- 
pression glimmering from beneath her opening lids — 
little Pearl awoke ! 

How soon — with what strange rapidity, indeed ! 
did Pearl arrive at an age that was capable of social 
intercourse, beyond the mother’s ever-ready smile and 
nonsense-words ! And then what a happiness would it 
have been, could Hester Prynne have heard her clear, 
bird-like voice mingling with the uproar of other childish 
voices, and have distinguished and unravelled her own 
darling’s tones, amid all the entangled outcry of a group 
of sportive children ! But this could never be. Pearl 
was a born outcast of the infantile world. An imp of 
evil, emblem and product of sin, she had no right among 
cnristened infants. Nothing was more remarkable than 
the instinct, as it seemed, with which the child compre- 
hended her loneliness ; the destiny that had drawn an 
inviolable circle round about her ; the whole peculiarity, 
in short, of her position in respect to other children. 
Never, since her release from prison, had Hester met the 
public gaze without her. In all her walks about the 
town, Pearl, too, was there ; first as the babe in arms, 
and afterwards as the little girl, small companion of her 
mother, holding a forefinger with her whole grasp, and 
tripping along at the rate of three or four footsteps to one 
of Hester’s. She saw the children of the settlement, on 
the grassy margin of the street, or at the domestic thresh- 
olds, disporting themselves in such grim fashion as the 


PEARb. 


107 


fdritanic nuilme would permit; playing at going to 
church, perchance; or at scourging Quakers; or taking 
scalps in a sham-fight with the Indians ; or scaring one 
another with freaks of imitati ve witchcraft. Pearl saw, and 
gazed intently, but never sought to make acquaintance. 
li spoken to, she would not speak again. If the children 
gathered about her, as they sometimes did, Pearl would 
grow positively terrible in her puny wrath, snatching up 
stones to fling at them, with shrill, incoherent exclama- 
tions, that made her mother tremble, because they had so 
much the sound of a witch’s anathemas in some unknown 
tongue. 

The truth was, that the little Puritans, being of the 
most intolerant brood that ever lived, had got a vague 
<dea of something outlandish, unearthly, or at variance 
<vith ordinary fashions, in the mother and child ; and 
therefore scorned them in their hearts, and not unfre- 
4uently reviled them with their tongues. Pearl felt the 
sentiment, and requited it with the bitterest hatred that 
can be supposed to rankle in a childish bosom. These 
outbreaks of a fierce temper had a kind of value, and 
even comfort, for her mother ; because there was at least 
<m intelligible earnestness in the mood, instead of the 
ritful caprice that so often thwarted her in the child’s 
manifestations. It appalled her, nevertheless , to discern 
here* again, a shadowy reflection of the evil that had 
existed in herself. All this enmity and passion had 
Pearl inherited, by inalienable right, out of Hester’s 
heart. Mother and daughter stood together in the same 
circle of seclusion from human society ; and in the nature 
of the child seemed to be perpetuated those unquiet ele- 
ments thav hail distracted Hester Prynne before Pearl’s 


108 


TilE SCARLET LETTER. 


birth, but had since begun to be soothed away by the 
softening influences of maternity. 

At home, within and around her mother’s cottage, 
Pearl wanted not a wide and various circle of acquaint- 
ance. The spell of life went forth from her ever creative 
spirit, and communicated itself to a thousand objects, as 
a torch kindles a flame wherever it may be applied. The 
unlikeliest materials, — a stick, a bunch of rags, a flow*- »*, 
— were the puppets of Pearl’s witchcraft, and, witK,*t 
undergoing any outward change, became spir'tu^iy 
adapted to whatever drama occupied the stage A ner 
inner world. Her one baby-voice served a mult ade of 
imaginary personages, old and young, to tall withal. 
The pine-trees, aged, black and solemn, and flinging 
groans and other melancholy utterances on th • breeze, 
needed little transformation to figure as Puritan elders ; 
the ugliest weeds of the garden were their children, 
whom Pearl smote down and uprooted, most unmerci- 
fully. It was wonderful, the vast variety of forms into 
which she threw her intellect, with no continuity, indeed, 
but darting up and dancing, always in a state of preter- 
natural activity, — soon sinking down, as if exhausted 
by so rapid and feverish a tide of life, — and succeeded 
by other shapes of a similar wild energy. It was like 
nothing so much as the phantasmagoric play of the 
northern lights. In the mere exercise* of the fancy, how- 
ever, and the sportiveness of a growing mind, there might 
be Title more than was observable in other children of 
bright faculties ; except as Pearl, in the dearth of human 
playmates, was thrown more upon the visionary throng 
which she created. The singularity lay in the hostile 
feelings with which the child regarded all these offspring 


PEARL. 


10 * 

cf her own heart and mind. She never created a friena 
but seemed always to be sowing broadcast the dragon’s 
teeth, whence sprung a hardest of armed enemies, against 
whom she rushed to battle. It was inexpressibly sad — 
then what depth of sorrow to a mother, who felt in her 
own heart the cause ! — to observe, in one so young, this 
constant recognition of an adverse world, and so fierce a 
training of the energies that were to make good her cause, 
in the contest that must ensue. 

Gazing at Pearl, Hester Prynne often dropped her 
work upon her knees, and cried out with an agony which 
she would fain have hidden, but which made utterance 
for itself, betwixt speech and a groan, — “ O Father in 
Heaven, — if Thou art still my Father, — what is this 
being which I have brought into the world ! ” And 
Pearl, overhearing the ejaculation, or aware, through 
some more subtile channel, of those throbs of anguish, 
would turn her vivid and beautiful little face upon her 
mother, smile with sprite-like intelligence, and resume 
her play. 

One peculiarity of the child’s deportment remains yet 
to be told. The very first thing which she had noticed, 
in her life, was — what ? — not the mother’s smile, re- 
sponding to it, as other babies do, by that faint, embryo 
smile of the little mouth, remembered so doubtfully after- 
wards, and with such fond discussion whether it were 
indeed a smile. By no means ! But that first object of 
which Pearl seemed to become aware was — shall we say 
it ? — the scarlet letter on Hester’s bosom ! One day, as 
her mother stooped over the cradle, the infant’s eyes had 
been caught by the glimmering of the gold embroidery 
about the letter; and, putting up her little hand, she 


110 


THE SCARLET LETTER 


grasped at it, smiling, not doubtfully, but with a decided 
gleam, that gave her face the look of a much older child. 
Then, gasping for breath, did -Hester Prynne clutch the 
fatal token, instinctively endeavoring to tear it away ; so 
infinite was the torture inflicted by the intelligent touch 
of Pearl’s baby -hand. Again, as if her mother’s ago- 
nized gesture were meant only to make sport for her, did 
little Pearl look into her eyes, and smile! From that 
epoch, except when the child was asleep, Hester had 
never felt a moment’s safety ; not a moment’s calm enjoy- 
ment of her. Weeks, it is true, would sometimes elapse, 
during which Pearl’s gaze might never once be fixed 
upon the scarlet letter ; but then, again, it would come 
at unawares, like the stroke of sudden death, and 
always with that peculiar smile, and odd expression of 
the eyes. 

Once, this freakish, elvish cast came into the child’s 
eyes, while Hester was looking at her own image in them, 
as mothers are fond of doing ; and, suddenly, — for wo- 
men in solitude, and with troubled hearts, are pestered 
with unaccountable delusions, — "she fancied that she be- 
held, not her own miniature portrait, but another face, in 
the small black mirror of Pearl’s eye. It was a face, fiend- 
like, full of smiling malice, yet bearing the semblance of 
features that she had known full well, though seldom 
with a smile, and never with malice in them. It was as 
if an evil spirit possessed the child, and had just then 
peeped forth in mockery. Many a time afterwards had 
Hester been tortured, though less vividly, by the same 
illusion. 

In the afternoon of a certain summer’s day, after Pearl 
grew big enough to run about, she amused herself with 


PEARL. 


Ill 


gathering handfuls of wild-flowers, and flinging them, ono 
by one, at h*r mother’s bosom ; dancing up and down, 
like a little elf, whenever she hit the scarlet letter. Hes- 
ter’s first motion had been to cover her bosom with her 
clasped hands. But, whether from pride or resignation, 
or a feeling that her penance might best be wrought out 
by this unutterable pain, she resisted the impulse, and 
sat erect, pale as death, looking sadly into little Pearl’s 
wild eyes. Still came the battery of flowers, almost in- 
variably hitting the mark, and covering the mother’s 
breast with hurts for which she could find no balm in this 
world, nor knew how to seek it in another. At last, her 
shot being all expended, the child stood still and gazed at 
Hester, with that little, laughing image of a fiend peep- 
ing out — or, whether it peeped or no, her mother so 
imagined it — from the unsearchable abyss of her black 
eyes. 

“Child, what art thou ? ” cried the mother. 

“ O, I am your little Pearl ! ” answered the child. 

But, while she said it, Pearl laughed, and began to 
dance up and down, with the humorsome gesticulation 
of a little imp, whose next freak might be to fly up the 
chimney. 

“ Art thou my child, in very truth ? ” asked Hester. 

Nor did she put the question altogether idly, but, for 
ths moment, with a portion of genuine earnestness ; for, 
such was Pearl’s wonderful intelligence, that her mother 
half doubted whether she were not acquainted with the 
secret spell of her existence, and might not now reveal 
herself. 

“ Yes ; I am little Pearl ! ” repeated the child, contin- 
uing her antics. 


112 


THE .SCARLET LETTER 


“ Thou art not my child ! Thou art no Pearl of mine ! * 
said the mother, half playfully ; for it was often the case 
that a sportive impulse came over her, in the midst of her 
deepest suffering. “ Tell me, then, what thou art, and 
who sent thee hither ? ” 

“ Tell me, mother ! ” said the child, seriously, coming 
up to Hester, and pressing herself close to her knees. 
“ Do thou tell me ! ” 

“ Thy Heavenly Father sent thee ! ” answered Hester 
Prynne. 

But she said it with a hesitation that did not escape 
the acuteness of the child. Whether moved only by her 
ordinary freakishness, or because an evil spirit prompted 
her, she put up her small forefinger, and touched the 
scarlet letter. 

“He did not send me!” cried she, positively. “1 
have no Heavenly Father ! ” 

“ Hush, Pearl, hush ! Thou must not talk so ! ” an- 
swered the mother, suppressing a groan. “ He sent us 
all into this world. He sent even me, thy mother. Then, 
much more, thee ! Or, if not, thou strange and elfish 
child, whence didst thou come ? ” 

“ Tell me ! Tell me ! ” repeated Pearl, no longer 
seriously, but laughing, and capering about the floor. 
“ It is thou that must tell me ! ” 

But Hester could not resolve the query, being herself 
in a dismal labyrinth of doubt. She remembered — be- 
twixt a smile and a shudder — the talk of the neighbor- 
ing townspeople ; who, seeking vainly elsewhere for the 
child’s pa temity, and observing some of her odd attributes 
had given out that poor little Pearl was e demon ofl 
spring; such as, ever since old Catholic times, had occa 


PEARL. 


sionally been seen on earth, through the agency of their 
mother’s sin, and to promote some foul and wicked pur- 
pose. Luther, according to the scandal of his monkish 
enemies, was a brat of that hellish breed ; nor was I earl 
the only child to whom this inauspicious origin wv 
assigned among tne New England Puritans. 


9 



to t i eiaslv 
oa ogt 

oil I no i 
9*1) ^nii 

i uo 

s^r.ffc 


1 14 


THE SCARLET LETTEfc. 


VII. 

THE GOVERNOR’S HALL. 

Hester Prynne went, one day, to Lie mansion of 
Governor Bellingham, with a pair of gloves, which she 
had fringed and embroidered to his order, and which were 
to be worn on some great occasion of state ; for, though 
the chances of a popular election had caused this former 
ruler to descend a step or two from the highest rank, he 
still held an honorable and influential place among the 
colonial magistracy. 

Another and far more important reason than the deliv- 
ery of a pair of embroidered gloves impelled Hester, at 
this time, to seek an interview with a personage of so 
much power and activity in the affairs of the settlement. 
It had reached her ears, that there was a design on the 
part of some of the leading inhabitants, cherishing the 
more rigid order of principles in religion and government, 
to deprive her of her child. On the supposition that 
Pearl, as already hinted, was of demon origin, these good 
people not unreasonably argued that a Christian interest 
in the mother’s soul required them to remove such a 
stumbling-block from her path. If the child, on the 
other hand, were really capable of moral and religions 
growth, and possessed the elements >f ultimate salvation 
then, surely, it would enjoy all the fairer prospect of these 
advantages, by being transferred to wiser and better 
guardianship than Hester Prynne’s. Among those who 
promoted the design, Governor Bellingham was said to 


THE JOVERNOR’S HALL. 


115 


be one of the most busy. It may appear singular, and 
indeed, not a little ludicrous, that an affair of thr, 
kind, which, in later days, would have been referred 
to no higher jurisdiction than that of the selectmen of 
the town, should then have been a question publicly 
discussed., and on which statesmen of eminence took 
sides. At that epoch of pristine simplicity, however, 
matters of even slighter public interest, and of far less 
intrinsic weight, than the welfare of Hester and her 
child, were strangely mixed up with the deliberations of 
legislators and acts of state. The period was hardly, 
if at all, earlier than that of our story, when a dispute 
concerning the right of property in a pig, not only caused 
a fierce and bitter contest in the legislative body of the 
colony, but resulted in an important modification of the 
framework itself of the legislature. 

Full of concern, therefore, — but so conscious of her 
own right that it seemed scarcely an unequal match 
between the public, on the one side, and a lonely woman, 
backed by the sympathies of nature, on the other, — 
Hester Prynne set forth from her solitary cottage. Lit- 
tle Pearl, of course, was her companion. She was now 
of an age to run lightly along by her mother’s side, and 
constantly in motion, from morn till sunset, could have 
accomplished a much longer journey than that before 
her. Often, nevertheless, more from caprice than neces- 
sity, she demanded to be taken up inarms ; but was soon 
as imperious to be set down again, and frisked onward 
before Hester on the grassy pathway, with many a 
harmless trip and tumble. We have spoken of Pearls 
rich and luxuriant beauty; a beauty that shone with 
deep and vivid tints; a bright complexion, eyes possess 


116 


THE SCARLET LETTLfl. 


mg intensity both of depth and glow, and hair already 
of a deep, glossy brown, and which, in after years, 
would be nearly akin to black. There was fire in her 
and throughout her; she seemed the unpremeditated 
offshoot of a passionate moment. Her mother, in con- 
triving the child’s garb, had allowed the gorgeous ten 
dencies of her imagination their full play; arraying her 
in a crimson velvet tunic, of a peculiar cut, abundantly 
embroidered with fantasies and flourishes of gold thread. 
So much strength of coloring, which must have given a 
wan and pallid aspect to cheeks of a fainter bloom, was 
admirably adapted to Pearl’s beauty, and made her the 
very brightest little jet of flame that ever danced upon 
the earth. 

But it was a remarkable attribute of this garb, and, 
indeed, of the child’s whole appearance, that it irresist- 
ibly and inevitably reminded the beholder of the token 
which Hester Prynne was doomed to wear upon her 
bosom. It was the scarlet letter in another form; the 
scarlet letter endowed with life ! The mother herself — 
as if the red ignominy were so deeply scorched into hei 
brain that all her conceptions assumed its form — had 
carefully wrought out the similitude ; lavishing many 
hours of morbid ingenuity, to create an analogy between 
the object of her affection and the emblem of her guilt 
and torture. But, in truth, Pearl was the one, as well 
as the other; and only in consequence of that identity 
had Hester contrived so perfectly to represent the scarlet 
letter in her appearance. 

As the two wayfarers came within the precincts of 
the town, the children of the Puritans looked up front 


THE GO'V EKNOR ? S IT A EE 


111 


their play, — or what passed for play with ihose sombre 
little urchins, — and spake gravely one to another: — 

“ Behold, verily, there is the woman of the scarlet 
letter ; and, of a truth, moreover, there is the likeness 
of the scarlet letter running along by her side ! Come, 
therefore, and let us fling mud at them ! ” 

But Pearl, who was a dauntless child, after frowning, 
stamping her foot, and shaking her little hand with a 
variety of threatening gestures, suddenly made a rush 
at the knot of her enemies, and put them all to flight. 
She resembled, in her fierce pursuit of them, an infant 
pestilence, — the scarlet fever, or some such half-fledged 
angel of judgment, — whose mission was to punish the 
sins of the rising generation. She screamed and shout- 
ed, too, with a terrific volume of sound, which, doubtless, 
caused the hearts of the fugitives to quake within them. 
The victory accomplished, Pearl returned quietly to her 
mother, and looked up, smiling, into her face. 

Without further adventure, they reached the dwelling 
of Governor Bellingham. This was a large wooden 
house, built in a fashion of which there are specimens 
still extant in the streets of our elder towns ; now moss- 
grown, crumbling to decay, and melancholy at heart 
with the many sorrowful or joyful occurrences, remem- 
bered or forgotten, that have happened, and passed 
away, within their dusky chambers. Then, however, 
there was the freshness of the passing year on its exte- 
rior, and the cheerfulness, gleaming forth from the sunny 
windows, of a human habitation, into which death had 
never entered. It had, indeed, a very cheery aspect; 
the walls being overspread with a kind of stucco, in 
which fragments of broken glass were plentifully inter- 


118 


THE SCARLET' LETTER. 


mixed ; so that, when the sunshine fell aslant-wjse ove: 
the front of the edifice, it glittered and sparkled is if 
diamonds had been flung against it by the double 
handful. The brilliancy might have befitted Aladdin’s 
palace, rather than the mansion of a grave old Puritan 
ruler. It was further decorated with strange and seem- 
ingly cabalistic figures and diagrams, suitable to the 
quaint taste of the age, which had been drawn in the 
stucco when newly laid on, and had now grown hard 
and durable, for the admiration of after .times. 

Pearl, looking at this bright wonder of a house, began 
to caper and dance, and imperatively required that the 
whole breadth of sunshine should be stripped off its 
front, and given her to play with. 

“ No, my little Pearl ! ” said her mother. “ Thou 
must gather thine own sunshine. I have none to give 
thee ! ” 

They approached the door ; which was of an arched 
form, and flanked on each side by a narrow tower 01 
projection of the edifice, in both of which were lattice- 
windows, with wooden shutters to close over them at 
need. Lifting the iron hammer that hung at the portal, 
Hester Prynne gave a summons, which was answered 
by one of the Governor’s bond-servants; a free-born 
Englishman, but now a seven years’ slave. During 
that term he was to be the property of his master, and 
as much a commodity of bargain and sale as an ox, or 
a joint-stool. The serf wore the blue coat, which was 
the customary garb of serving-men at that period, and 
long before, in the old hereditary halls of England. 

“Is the worshipful Governor Bellingham within f r 
inquired Hester. 


THE GOVERNOR S HALL 


119 


“Yea, forsooth,” replied the bond-servant, staring 
with wide-open eyes at the scarlet letter, which, being a 
new-comer in the country, he had never before seen. 
“ Yea, his honorable worship is within. But he hath a 
godly minister or two with him, and likewise a leech. 
Ye may not see his worship now.” 

“ Nevertheless, I will enter,” answered Hester Prynne, 
and the bond-servant, perhaps judging from the decision 
of her air, and the glittering symbol in her bosom, that 
she was a great lady in the land, offered no opposition. 

So the mother and little Pearl were admitted into 
the hall of entrance. With many variations, suggested 
by the nature of his building-materials, diversity of 
climate, and a different mode of social life, Governor 
Bellingham had planned his new habitation after the 
residences of gentlemen of fair estate in his native land. 
Here, then, was a wide and reasonably lofty hall, ex- 
tending through the whole depth of the house, and 
forming a medium of general communication, more or 
less directly, with all the other apartments. At one 
extremity, this spacious room was lighted by the win- 
dows of the two towers, which formed a small recess on 
either side of the portal. At the other end, though 
partly muffled by a curtain, it was more powerfully 
illuminated by one of those embowed hall-windows 
which we read of in old books, and which was provided 
with a keep and cushioned seat. Here, on the cushion, 
lay a folio tome, probably of the Chronicles of England, 
or other such substantial literature ; even as, in our own 
clays, we scatter gilded volumes on the centre-table, to 
be turned over by the casual guest. The furniture of 
the hall consisted of some ponderous chairs, the backs 


120 


THE SCARLET LETTER. 


of which were elaborately carved with wreaths of oaken 
flowers; and likewise a table in the same taste; the 
whole being of the Elizabethan age, or perhaps earlier, 
and heirlooms, transferred hither from the Governor’s 
paternal home. On the table — in token that the sen- 
timent of old English hospitality had not been left 
behind — stood a large pewter tankard, at the bottom of 
which, had Hester or Pearl peeped into it, they might 
have seen the frothy remnant of a recent draught of 
ale. 

On the wall hung a row of portraits, representing the 
forefathers of the Bellingham lineage, some with armor 
on their breasts, and others with stately ruffs and robes 
of peace. All were characterized by the sternness and 
severity which old portraits so invariably put on ; as if 
they were the ghosts, rather than the pictures, of de- 
parted worthies, and were gazing with harsh and intol- 
erant criticism at the pursuits and enjoyments of living 
men. 

At about the centre of the oaken panels, that lined 
the hall, was suspended a suit of mail, not, like the 
pictures, an ancestral relic, but of the most modem date ; 
for it had been manufactured by a skilful armorer ir 
London, the same year in which Governor Bellingham 
came over to New England. There was a steel head- 
piece, a cuirass, a gorget, and greaves, with a pair of 
gauntlets and a sword hanging beneath ; all, and espec- 
ially the helmet and breastplate, so highly burnished 
as to glow with white radiance, and scatter an illumina- 
tion everywhere about upon the floor. This bright 
panoply was not meant for mere idle show, but had 
been worn by the Governor on many a solemn muster 


THE GOVERNOR'S HALL. 


12 ) 


and training field, and had glittered, moreover, at the 
head of a regiment in the Pequod war. For, though 
bred a lawyer, and accustomed to speak of Bacon, Coke, 
Noje, and Finch, as his professional associates, the ex* 
igences of this new country had transformed Governor 
Bellingham into a soldier, as well as a statesman and 
iuler. 

Little Pearl — who was as greatly pleased with the 
gleaming armor as she had been with the glittering fron- 
tispiece of the house — spent some time looking into the 
polished mirror of the breastplate. 

“ Mother,” cried she, “ I see you here. Look ! 
Look ! ” 

Hester looked, by way of humoring the child ; and 
she saw that, owing to the peculiar effect of this con- 
vex mirror, the scarlet letter was represented in exagger- 
ated and gigantic proportions, so as to be greatly the 
most prominent feature of her appearance. In truth, 
she seemed absolutely hidden behind it. Pearl pointed 
upward, also, at a similar picture in the head-piece; 
smiling at her mother, with the elfish intelligence that 
was so familiar an expression on her small physiognomy. 
That look of naughty merriment was likewise reflected 
in the mirror, with so much breadth and intensity of 
effect, that it made Hester Prynne feel as if it could not 
be the image of her own child, but of an imp who was 
seeking to mould itself into Pearl’s shape. 

“ Come along, Pearl,” said she, drawing her away. 
1 Come and look into this rair garden. It may be, we 
shall see flowers there ; more beautiful ones than we find 
in the woods.” 

Pearl accordingly, ran to the bow-window, a* tha 


THE SCARLET LETTER. 


jOO 


further end of the hall, and looked along the vista r f 
a gurden-walk, carpeted with closely shaven grass, and 
bordered with some rude and immature attempt at shrub- 
bery, But the proprietor appeared already to have re- 
linquished, as hopeless, the effort to perpetuate on this 
side ?f the Atlantic, in a hard soil and amid the close 
struggle for subsistence, the native English taste for 
ornamental gardening. Cabbages grew in plain sight ; 
and a pumpkin-vine, rooted at some distance, had run 
across the intervening space, and deposited one of its 
gigantic products directly beneath the hall-window ; as 
if towam the Governor that this great lump of vegetable 
gold was as rich an ornament as New England earth 
would offer him. There were a few rose-bushes, how- 
ever, and a number of apple-trees, probably the descend- 
ants of those planted by the Reverend Mr. Blackstone, 
the first settler of the peninsula ; that half mythological 
personage, who rides through our early annals, seated on 
the back of a bull. 

Pearl, seeing the rose-bur hes, began to cry for a red 
rose, and would not be pacified, 

“Hush, child, hush!” said ber mother, earnestly. 

Do not cry, dear little Pearl ! I hear voices in the 
garden. The Governor is coming, and gentlemen along 
with him ! ” 

In fact, adown the vista of the garden avenue, a num 
ber of persons were seen auproaching towards the house. 
Pearl; in utter scorn of ber mother’s attempt to quiet her, 
gave an eldritch scream, and then became silent; not 
from any notion of obedience, but because the quick and 
mobile curiosity of her disposition excited by the 
tppearar.ee of these new personage*. 


THE ELF -CHILD ANP THE MINISTER 


123 


VIII. 

THE ELF-CHILD AND THE MINISTER. 

Governor Bellingham, in a loose gown and easy 
cap, — such as elderly gentlemen loved to endue them- 
selves with, in their domestic privacy, — walked fore- 
most, and appeared to be showing off his estate, and 
expatiating on his projected improvements. The wide 
circumference of an elaborate ruff, beneath his gray 
beard, in the antiquated fashion of King James’ reign, 
caused his head to look not a little like that of John the 
Baptist in a charger. The impression made by his 
aspect, so rigid and severe, and frost-bitten with more 
than autumnal age, was hardly in keeping with the ap- 
pliances of worldly enjoyment wherewith he had evi- 
dently done his utmost to surround himself. But it is 
an error to suppose that our grave forefathers — though 
accustomed to speak and think of human existence as a 
state merely of trial and w r arfare, and though unfeignedly 
prepared to sacrifice goods and life at the behest of duty 
— made it a matter of conscience to reject such means 
of comfort, or even luxury, as lay fairly within theii 
grasp. This creed was never taught, for instance, by 
the venerable pastor, John Wilson, whose beard, white 
as a snow-drift, was seen over Governor Bellingham’s 
shoulder; while its wearer suggested that pears and 
peaches might yet be naturalized in the New England 
climate, and that purple grapes might possibly be com- 
pelled to flourish against the sunny garden-wall The 


124 


THE SCARLET LETTER. 


old clergy. nan, nurtured at the rich bosom of the Eng 
lish Church, had a long-established and legitimate taste 
for all good and comfortable things ; and however stern 
he might show himself in the pulpit, or in his public 
reproof of such transgressions as that of Hester Prynne, 
still, the genial benevolence of his private life had won 
him warmer affection than was accorded to any of his 
professional contemporaries. 

Behind the Governor and Mr. Wilson came two other 
guests ; one, the Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale, whom 
the reader may remember, as having taken a brief and 
reluctant part in the scene of Hester Prynne’s disgrace ; 
and, in close companionship with him, old Roger Chil- 
lingworth, a person of great skill in physic, who, for two 
or three years past, had been settled in the town. It 
was understood that this learned man was the physician 
as well as friend of the young minister, whose health 
had severely suffered, of late, by his too unreserved self- 
sacrifice to the labors and duties of the pastoral rela- 
tion. 

The Governor, in advance of his visitors, ascended 
one or two steps, and, throwing open the leaves of the 
great hall window, found himself close to little Pearl. 
The shadow of the curtain fell on Hester Prynne, and 
partially concealed her. 

“ What have we here ? ” said Governor Bellingham, 
looking with surprise at the scarlet little figure before 
him. “ I profess, I have never seen the like, since my 
days of vanity, in old King James’ time, when I was> 
wont to esteem it a high favor to be admitted to a court 
mask ! There used to be a swarm of these small ap- 
paritions, in holiday time ; and at ’ailed them children 


THE ELF-CHILD AND THE MINISTER. 


125 


of the Lord of Misrule. But how gat such a guest into 
my hall ? ” 

“Ay, indeed ! ” cried good old Mr. Wilson. “ What 
little bird of scarlet plumage may this be ? Methinks 
I have seen just such figures, when the sun has been 
shining through a richly painted window, and tracing 
out the golden and crimson images across the floor. 
But that was in the old land. Prithee, young one, who 
art thou, and what has ailed thy mother to bedizen thee 
in this strange fashion ? Art thou a Christian child, — 
ha ? Dost know thy catechism ? Or art thou one of 
those naughty elfs or fairies, whom we thought to have 
left behind us, with other relics of Papistry, in merry 
old England ? ” 

“ I am mother’s child,” answered the scarlet vision, 
“ and my name is Pearl ! ” 

“ Pearl ? — Ruby, rather ! — or Coral ! — or Red Rose, 
at the very least, judging from thy hue ! ” responded the 
old minister, putting forth his hand in a vain attempt to 
pat little Pearl on the cheek. “ But where is this mother 
of thine ? Ah ! I see,” he added ; and, turning to Gov- 
ernor Bellingham, whispered, “ This is the selfsame 
child of whom we have held speech together; and 
behold here the unhappy woman, Hester Prynne, her 
mother ! ” 

“ Sayest- thou so ?” cried the Governor. “Nay, we 
might have judged that such a child’s mother must needs 
be a scarlet woman, and a worthy type of her of Baby- 
lon ! But she comes at a good time ; and we will look 
into this matter forthwith.” 

Governor Bellingham stepped through the window 
into the hall followed by his three guests. 


126 


THE SCARLET LE1TFR. 


“Hester Prynne,” said he, fixing hi* mfunUy s*ern 
regard on the wearer of the scarlet letter, “ them h^th 
been much question concerning thee, of late, Tho 
point hath been weightily discussed, whether we, that 
are of authority and influence, do well discharge ou* 
consciences by trusting an immortal soul, such as ther* 
is in yonder child, to the guidance of one who hath 
stumbled and fallen, amid the pitfalls of this world 
Speak thou, the child’s own mother! Were it not 
thinkest thou, for thy little one’s temporal and eternal 
welfare, that she be taken out of thy charge, and clati 
soberly, and disciplined strictly, and instructed in tht 
truths of heaven and earth ? What canst thou do foi 
die child, in this kind?” 

“ I can teach my little Pearl what I have learned 
from this ! ” answered Hester Prynne, laying her fingei 
on the red token. 

“Woman, it is thy badge of shame !” replied the sten 
magistrate. “ It is because of the stain which that lette. 
indicates, that we would transfer thy child to otho 
hands.” 

“Nevertheless,” said the mother, calmly, though 
growing more pale, “ this badge hath taught me, — i» 
daily teaches me, — it is teaching me at this moment 
— lessons whereof my child may be the wiser ana 
better, albeit they can profit nothing to myself.” 

“We will judge warily,” said Bellingham, “ana .ook 
well what we are about to do. Good Master Wilson, I 
pray you, examine this Pearl, — since that is her name, 
— and see whether she hath had such Christian nurture 
as befits a child of her age.” 

The old minister seated himself in an arm-chair, and 


THE ELF-CHILD AND THE -11NISTEK. VSi 

made an effort to draw Pearl betwixt his knees. But 
the child, unaccustomed to the touch or familiarity of 
any but her mother, escaped through the open window, 
and stood on the upper step, looking like a wild tropical 
bird, of rich plumage, ready to take flight into the upper 
air. Mr. Wilson, not a little astonished at this out- 
break, — for he was a grandfatherly sort of personage, 
and usually a vast favorite with children, — essayed, 
however, to proceed with the examination. 

“ Pearl,” said he, with great solemnity, “ thou must 
take heed to instruction, that so, in due season, thou 
mayest wear in thy bosom the pearl of great price. 
Canst thou tell me, my child, who made thee?” 

Now Pearl knew well enough who made her; for 
Hester Prynne, the daughter of a pious home, very soon 
after her talk with the child about her Heavenly 
Father, had begun to inform her of those truths which 
the human spirit, at whatever stage of immaturity, 
imbibes with such eager interest. Pearl, therefore, so 
large were the attainments of her three years’ lifetime, 
could have borne a fair examination in the New England 
Primer, or the first column of the Westminster Cate- 
chisms, although unacquainted with the outward form 
of either of those celebrated works. But that perversity, 
which all children have more or less of, and of which 
little Pearl had a ten-fold portion, now, at the most inop- 
portune moment, took thorough possession of her, and 
closed her lips, or impelled her to speak words amiss. 
After putting her finger in her mouth, with many 
ungracious refusals to answer good Mr. Wilson’s ques- 
tion, the child finally announced that she had not been 
made at all, but had been plucked by her mother 


128 


THE SCAR1.ET LETTER. 


off the bush of wild roses that grew by the prison 
door. 

This fantasy was probably suggested by the neai 
proximity of the Governor’s red roses, as Pearl stood 
outside of the window; together with her recollection 
of the prison rose-bush, which she had passed in coming 
hither. 

Old Roger Chillingwortli, with a smile on his face, 
whispered something in the young clergyman’s ear. 
Hester Prynne looked at the man of skill, and even 
then, with her fate hanging in the balance, was startled 
to perceive what a change had come over his features, 
— how much uglier they were, — how his dark com- 
plexion seemed to have grown duskier, and his figure 
more misshapen, — since the days when she had famil- 
iarly known him. She met his eyes for an instant, but 
was immediately constrained to give all her attention to 
the scene now going forward. 

“This is awful!” cried the Governo jwly recov- 
ering from the astonishment into which Pearl’s response 
had thrown him. “ Here is a child of three years old, 
and she cannot tell who made her! Without question, 
she is equally in the dark as to her soul, its present 
depravity, and future destiny! Methinks, gentlemen, 
we need inquire no further.” 

Hester caught hold of Pearl, and drew her forcibly 
into her arms, confronting the old Puritan magistrate 
with almost a fierce expression. Alone in the world, 
cast off by it, and with this sole treasure to keep hei 
heart alive, she felt that she possessed indefeasible 
rights against the world, and was ready to detend them 
tc die death. 


THE ELF-CHILD AND THE MINISTER. 


129 


“ God gave me the child ! ” cried she. “ He gave her 
in requital of all things else, which ye had taken from 
ine. She is my happiness! — she is my torture, none 
the less ! Pearl keeps me here in life ! Pearl punishes 
me too! See ye not, she is the scarlet letter, only 
capable of being loved, and so endowed with a million- 
fold the power of retribution for my sin? Ye shall not 
take her ! I will die first ! ” 

“ My poor woman,” said the not unkind old minister, 
“the child shall be well cared for! — far better than 
thou canst do it.” 

“God gave her into my keeping,” repeated Hester 
Prynne, raising her voice almost to a shriek. “ I will 
not give her up ! ” — And here, by a sudden impulse, 
she turned to the young clergyman, Mr. Dimmesdale 
at whom, up to this moment, she had seemed hardly s# 
much as once to direct her eyes. — “ Speak thou f<>' 
me!” cried she. “Thou wast my pastor, and hads? 
charge of my soul, and knowest me better than these* 
men can. I will not lose the child! Speak for me* 
Thou knowest, — for thou hast sympathies which these 
men lack ! — thou knowest what is in my heart, and 
what are a mother’s rights, and how much the strongei 
they are, when that mother has but her child and the 
scarlet letter! Look thou to it! I will not lose the 
child ! Look to it ! ” 

At this wild and singular appeal, which indicated that 
Hester Prynne’s situation had provoked her to little less 
than madness, the young minister at once came forward, 
pale, and holding his hand over his heart, as was his 
custom whenever his peculiarly nervous temperament 
ara* thrown into agitation. He looked now more care 
9 


130 


THE SCARLET LETTER. 


worn anH emaciated than as we described him at the 
Beene ui Hester’s public ignominy ; and whether it were 
his failing health, or whatever the cause might be, his 
large dark eyes had a world of pain in their troubled 
and melancholy depth. f 

“ There is truth in what she says,” began the minis- 
tei, with a voice sweet, tremulous, but powerful, inso- 
much that the hall reechoed, and the hollow armor rang 
with it, - — “ truth in what Hester says, and in the feel- 
ing which inspires her ! God gave her the child, and 
gave her, too, an instinctive knowledge of its nature and 
requirements, — both seemingly so peculiar, — which no 
other mortal being can possess. And, moreover, is there 
not a quality of awful sacredness in the relation between 
this mother and this child ?” 

“Ay! — how is that, good Master Dimmesdale?” 
interrupted the Governor. “Make that plain, I pray 
you!” 

“ It must be even so,” resumed the minister. “ For, 
if we deem it otherwise, do we not thereby say that th? 
Heavenly Father, the Creator of all flesh, hath lightly 
recognized a deed of sin, and made of no account the 
distinction between unhallowed lust and holy love? 
This child of its father’s guilt and its mother’s shame 
hath come from the hand of God, to work in many 
ways upon her heart, who pleads so earnestly, and with 
such bitterness of spirit, the right to keep her. It was 
meant for a blessing ; for the one blessing of her life ! 
It was meant, doubtless, as the mother herself hath told 
as, for a retribution too ; a torture to be felt at many an 
unthought of moment ; a pang, a sting, an ever-recur- 
ring agony, in the midst of a troubled joy ! Hath she 


THE ELF-CE1LD AND THE MINISTER, lLl 

not expressed this thought in the garb of the poor child^ 
so forcibly reminding us of that red symbol which sears 
her bosom ? ” 

“Well said, again!” cried good Mr. Wilson. “1 
feared the woman had no better thought than to make 
a mountebank of her child ! ” 

“ O, not so ! — not so ! ” continued Mr. Dimmesdale. 

She recognizes, believe me, the solemn miracle which 
God hath wrought, in the existence of that child. And 
may she feel, too, — what, methinks, is the very truth 
— that this boon was meant, above all things else, to 
keep the mother’s soul alive, and to preserve her from 
blacker depths of sin into which Satan might else have 
sought to plunge her! Therefore it is good for this 
poor, sinful woman that she hath an infant immortality, 
a being capable of eternal joy or sorrow,, confided to 
her care, — to be trained up by her to righteousness, — 
to remind her, at every moment, of her fall, — but yet 
to teach her, as it were by the Creator’s sacred pledge, 
that, if she bring the child to heaven, the child also 
will bring its parent thither! Herein is the sinful 
mother happier than the sinful father. For Hester 
Piynne’s sake, then, and no less for the poor child’s 
sake, let us leave them as Providence hath seen fit to 
place them ! ” 

“ You speak, my friend, with a strange earnestness,” 
said old Roger Chill ingworth, smiling at him. 

“ And tnere is a weighty import in what my young 
brother hath spoken,” added the Reverend Mr. Wilson. 
<« What say you, worshipful Master Bellingham ? Hath 
he not pleaded well for the poor woman ? ” 

“ Indeed hath he,” answered the magistrate “ and hath 


132 


THE SCARLET LETTER. 


adduced such arguments, that we will even leave the 
matter as it now stands ; so long, at least, as there shall 
he no further scandal in the woman. Care must be had, 
nevertheless, to put the child to due and stated examina- 
tion in the catechism, at thy hands or Master Dimmes- 
dale’s. Moreover, at a proper season, the tithing-men 
must take heed that she go both to school and to meet 
ing” 

The young minister, cn ceasing to speak, had with- 
drawn a few steps from the group, and stood with his fac« 
partially concealed in the heavy folds of the window- 
curtain ; while the shadow of his figure, which the sunlight 
cast upon the floor, was tremulous with the vehemence 
of his appeal. Pearl, that wild and flighty little elf. 
stole softly towards him, and taking his hand in the grasp 
of both her own, laid her cheek against it ; a caress sg 
tender, and withal so unobtrusive, that her mother, who 
was looking on, asked herself, — “ Is that my Pearl ? ’ 
Yet she knew that there was love in the child’s heart, 
although it mostly revealed itself in passion, and hardly 
twice in her lifetime had been softened by such gentle- 
ness as now. The minister, — for, save the long-soughC 
regards of woman, nothing is sweeter than these marks 
of childish preference, accorded spontaneously by a spir- 
itual instinct, and therefore seeming to imply in us some- 
thing truly worthy to be loved, — the minister looked 
round, laid his hand on the child’s head, hesitated an in- 
stant, and then kissed her brow. Little Pearl’s unwonted 
mood of sentiment lasted no longer; she laughed, and 
went capering down the hall, so airily, that old Mr Wil 
son raised a question whether even hei tiptoes touched 
die floor. 


THE ELT -CHILD AND THE MINISTER. 


m 


The little baggage hath witchcraft in her, [ profess/* 
said he to Mr. Dimmesdale. “ She needs no old woman’s 
broomstick to fly withal ! ” 

“ A strange child ! ” remarked old Roger Chillingworth. 
“ It is easy to see the mother’s part in her. Would it be 
beyond a philosopher’s research, think ye, gentlemen, to 
analyze that child’s nature, and, from its make and mould, 
to give a shrewd guess at the father ? ” 

“ Nay ; it would be sinful, in such a question, to fol- 
low the clew of profane philosophy,” said Mr. Wilson. 
“ Better to fast and pray upon it ; and still better, it may 
be, to leave the mystery as we find it, unless Providence 
reveal it of its own accord. Thereby, every good Chris- 
tian man hath a title to show a father’s kindness towards 
the poor, deserted babe.” 

The affair being so satisfactorily concluded, Hester 
Prynne, with Pearl, departed from the house. As they 
descended the steps, it is averred that the lattice of a 
chamber-window was thrown open, and forth into the 
sunny day was thrust the face of Mistress Hibbins, Gov- 
ernor Bellingham’s bitter-tempered sister, and the same 
who, a few years later, was executed as a witch. 

“ Hist, hist ! ” said she, while her ill-omened physiog- 
nomy seemed to cast a shadow over the cheerful newness 
of the house. “ Wilt thou go with us to-night? There 
will be a merry company in the forest ; and I well-nigh 
promised the Black Man that comely Hester Prynne 
should make one.” 

“ Make my excuse to him, so please you ! ” answered 
' Hester, with a triumphant smile. “ I must tarry at home, 
and keep watch over my little Pearl. Had they taken 
her from me, I would willingly have gone with thee into 


134 


THE SCARLET LETTER. 


the forest, and signed my name in the Black Man’s bock 
too, and that with mine own blood ! ” 

“ We shall have thee there anon ! ” said the witch- 
lady, frowning, as she drew back her head. 

But here — if we suppose this interview betwixt Mis- 
tress Hibbins and Hester Prynne to be authentic, and not 
a parable — was already an illustration of the young 
minister’s argument against sundering the relation of a 
fallen mother to the offspring of her frailty. E\ en thus 
early had the child saved her from Satan’s snare. 


THE LEECH. 


135 


IX. 

THE LEECH. 

Under the appellation of Roger Chillingworth, the 
reader will remember, was hidden another name, which 
its former wearer had resolved should never more be 
spoken. It has been related, how, in the crowd that wit- 
nessed Hester Prynne’s ignominious exposure, stood a 
man, elderly, travel-worn, who, just emerging from the 
perilous wilderness, beheld the woman, in whom he hoped 
to find embodied the warmth and cheerfulness of home, 
set up as a type of sin before the people. Her matronly 
fame was trodden under all men’s feet. Infamy was bab- 
bling around her in the public market-place. For her 
kindred, should the tidings ever reach them, and for the 
companions of her unspotted life, there remained nothing 
but the contagion of her dishonor ; which would not fail 
to be distributed in strict accordance and proportion with 
the intimacy and sacredness of their previous relation- 
ship. Then why — since the choice was with himself — 
should the individual, whose connection with the fallen 
woman had been the most intimate and sacred of them 
all, come forward to vindicate his claim to an inheritance 
so little desirable ? He resolved not to be pilloried beside 
her on her pedestal of shame. Unknown to all but Hes- 
ter Prynne, and possessing the lock and key of her silence, 
he chose to withdraw his name from the roll of mankind, 
and, as regarded his former ties and interests, to vanish 
out of life as completely as if he indeed lay pt the bottom 


136 


THE SCARLET LETTER. 


of the ocean, whither rumor had long ago consigned him. 
This purpose once effected, new interests would imme- 
diately spring up, and likewise a new purpose ; dark, it 
is true, if not guilty, but of force enough to engage the 
full strength of his faculties. 

In pursuance of this resolve, he took up his residence 
in the Puritan town, as Koger Chillingworth, without 
other introduction than the learning and intelligence of 
which he possessed more than a common measure. As 
his studies, at a previous period of his life, had made him 
extensively acquainted with the medical science of the 
day, it was as a physician that he presented himself, and 
as such was cordially received. Skilful men, of the 
medical and chirurgical profession, were of rare occur- 
rence in the colony. They seldom, it would appear, par- 
took of the religious zeal that brought other emigrants 
across the Atlantic. In their researches into the human 
frame, it may be that the higher and more subtile facul- 
ties of such men were materialized, and that they lost 
the spiritual view of existence amid the intricacies of that 
wondrous mechanism, which seemed to involve art enough 
to comprise all of life within itself. At all events, the 
health of the good town of Boston, so far as medicine 
had aught to do with it, had hitherto lain in the guardian- 
ship of an aged deacon and apothecary, whose piety and 
godly deportment were stronger testimonials in his favor 
than any that he could have produced in the shape of a 
diploma. The only surgeon was one who combined the 
occasional exercise of that noble art with the daily and 
habitual flourish of a razor. To such a professional body 
Reger Chillingworth was a brilliant acquisition. He soon 
nanifested his familiarity with the ponderous and impos- 


THE LEECH. 


/SI 


in g machinery of antique physic ; in which every remedy 
contained a multitude of far-fetched and heterogeneous 
ingredients, as elaborately compounded as if the proposed 
result had been the Elixir of Life. In his Indian cap- 
tivity, moreover, he had gained much knowledge of the 
properties of native herbs and roots ; nor did he conceal 
from his patients, that these simple medicines, Nature’s 
boon to the untutored savage, had quite as large a share 
of his own confidence as the European pharmacopoeia, 
which so many learned doctors had spent centuries in 
elaborating. 

This learned stranger was exemplary, as regarded, at 
least, the outward forms of a religious life, and, early after 
his arrival, had chosen for his spiritual guide the Reverend 
Mr. Dimmesdale. The young divine, whose scholar-like 
renown still lived in Oxford, was considered by his more 
fervent admirers as little less than a heavenly-ordained 
apostle, destined, should he live and labor for the ordi- 
nary term of life, to do as great deeds for the now feeble 
New England Church, as the early Fathers had achieved 
for the infancy of the Christian faith. About this period, 
however, the health of Mr. Dimmesdale had evidently 
begun to fail. By those best acquainted with his habits, 
the paleness of the young minister’s cheek was accounted 
for by his too earnest devotion to study, his scrupulous 
fulfilment of parochial duty, and, more than all, by the 
fasts and vigils of which he made a frequent practice, in 
order to keep the grossness of this earthly state from 
clogging and obscuring his spiritual lamp. Some declared, 
that, if Mr. Dimmesdale were really going to die, it was 
cause enough, that the world was not worthy to be any 
longer trodden by his feet. He himself, on the other 


139 


THE SCARLET LETTS h. 


hand, with characteristic humility, avowed his belief 
that, if Providence should see fit to remove him, it 
would be because of his own unworthiness to perform iti 
numbiest mission here on earth. With all this differ- 
ence of opinion as to the cause of his decline, then 
could be no question of the fact. His form grew ema 
dated ; his voice, though still rich and sweet, had a cei- 
tain melancholy prophecy of decay in it ; he was often 
observed, on any slight alarm or other sudden accident, 
to put his hand over his heart, with first a flush and 
then a paleness, indicative of pain. 

Such was the young clergyman’s condition, and so 
imminent the prospect that his dawning light would be 
extinguished, all untimely, when Roger Chillingworth 
made his advent to the town. His first entry on the 
scene, few people could tell whence, dropping down, 
as it were, out of the sky, or starting from the nether 
earth, had an aspect of mystery, which was easily 
heightened to the miraculous. He was now known to 
be a man of skill ; it was observed that he gathered 
nerbs, and the blossoms of wild-flowers, and dug up 
roots, "and plucked off twigs from the forest-trees, like 
one acquainted with hidden virtues in what was value- 
less to common eyes. He was heard to speak of Sir 
Kenelm Digby, and other famous men, — whose scien- 
tific attainments were esteemed hardly less than super- 
natural, — as having been his correspondents or asso- 
ciate? Why, with such rank in the learned world, had 
he come hither ? What could he, whose sphere was in 
great cities, be seeking in the wilderness ? In answer 
to this query, a rumor gained ground, — and, however 
nbsurd, war, entertained by some very sensible people 


THE LEECH. 


139 


— that Heaven hd X wrought an absolute miracle, by 
transporting an eminent Doctor of Physic, from a Ger- 
man university, bodily through the air, and setting him 
down at the door of Mr. Dimmesdale’s study ! Individ 
uals of wiser faith, indeed, who knew that Heaven pro- 
motes its purposes without aiming at the stage-effect of 
what is called miraculous interposition, were inclined to 
see a providential hand in Roger Chillingworth’s so 
opportune arrival. 

This idea was countenanced by the strong interest 
which the physician ever manifested in the young cler 
gyman ; he attached himself to him as a parishioner, 
and sought to win a friendly regard and confidence from 
his naturally reserved sensibility. He expressed great 
alarm at his pastor’s state of health, but was anxious to 
attempt the cure, and, if early undertaken, seemed not 
despondent of a favorable result. The elders, the dea- 
cons, the motherly dames, and the young and fair maid- 
ens, of Mr. Dimmesdale’s flock, were alike importunate 
that he should make trial of the physician’s frankly 
offered skill. Mr. Dimmesdale gently repelled their 
entreaties. 

“ I need no medicine,” said he. 

But how could the young minister say so, when, with 
every successive Sabbath, his cheek was paler and thin- 
ner, and his voice more tremulous than before, — when 
it had now become a constant habit, rather than a casual 
gesture, to press his hand over his heart ? Was he 
weary of his labors ? Did he wish to die ? These ques- 
tions were solemnly propounded to Mr. Dimmesdale by 
the elder ministers of Boston and the deacons of his 
shurch, who, to use their own phrase, “ dealt with him ” 


140 


THE SCARLET LETTER. 


on the sin of rejecting the aid which Providenceso man- 
ifestly held out. He listened in silence, and finally 
promised to confer with the physician. 

“ Were it God’s will,” said the Reverend Mr. Dim- 
mesdale, when, in fulfilment of this pledge, he requested 
old Roger Chillingworth’s professional advice, “ I could 
be well content, that my labors, and my sorrows, and my 
sins, and my pains, should shortly end with me, and 
what is earthly of them be buried in my grave, and the 
spiritual go with me to my eternal state, rather than 
that you should put your skill to the proof in my 
behalf.” 

“ Ah,” replied Roger Chillingworth, with that quiet- 
ness which, whether imposed or natural, marked all his 
deportment, “ it is thus that a young clergyman is apt 
to speak. Youthful men, not having taken a deep root, 
give up their hold of life so easily ! And saintly men, 
who walk with God on earth, would fain be away, to 
walk with him on the golden pavements of the New 
Jerusalem.” 

Nay,” rejoined the young minister, putting hie hand 
to his heart, with a flush of pain flitting over his brow, 
“ were I worthier to walk there, I could be better content 
to toil here.” 

“ Good men ever interpret themselves too meanly,” 
said the physician. 

In this manner, the mysterious old Roger Chilling- 
worth became the medical adviser of the Reverend Mr. 
Dimmesdale. As not only the disease interested the 
physician, but he was strongly moved to look into the 
character and qualities of the patient, these two men, so 
differen* in age, came gradually to spend much time 


THE LEECH. 


141 


together. For the sake of the minister’s health, and to 
enable the leech to gather plants with healing balm in 
them, they took long walks on the sea-shore, or in the 
forest ; mingling various talk with the plash and mur. 
mur of the waves, and the solemn wind-anthem among 
the tree-tops. Often, likewise, one was the guest of the 
other, in his place of study and retirement. There was 
a fascination for the minister in the company of the man 
of science, in whom he recognized an intellectual culti- 
vation of no moderate depth or scope ; together with a 
range and freedom of ideas, that he would have vainly 
looked for among the members of his own profession. 
In truth, he was startled, if not shocked, to find this 
attribute in the physician. Mr. Dimmesdale was a true 
priest, a true religionist, with the reverential sentiment 
largely developed, and an order of mind that impelled 
itself powerfully along the track of a creed, and wore its 
passage continually deeper with the lapse of time. In 
no state of society would he have been what is called a 
man of liberal views ; it would always be essential to 
his peace to feel the pressure of a faith about him, sup- 
porting, while it confined him within its iron framework. 
Not the less, however, though with a tremulous enjoy- 
ment, did he feel the occasional relief of looking at the 
universe through the medium of another kind of intel- 
lect than those with which he habitually held converse. It 
was as if a window were thrown open, admitting a freer 
atmosphere into the close and stifled study, where, his 
life was wasting itself away, amid lamp-light, or ob- 
structed day-beams, and the musty fragrance, be it sen- 
sual or moral, that exhales from books. But the air was 
too fresh and shill to be long breathed with comfort So 


142 


THE SCARLET LETTER. 


the minister, and the physician with him, withdrew 
again within the limits of what their church defined as 
orthodox. 

Thus Roger Chillingworth scrutinized his patient 
carefully, both as he saw him in his ordinary life, keep- 
ing an accustomed pathway in the range of thoughts 
familiar to him, and as he appeared when thrown amidst 
other moral scenery, the novelty of which might call out 
something new to the surface of his character. He 
deemed it essential, it would seem, to know the man, 
l>efore attempting to do him good. Wherever there is a 
heart and an intellect, the diseases of the physical frame 
are tinged with the peculiarities of these. / In Arthur 
Dimmesdale, thought and imagination were so active, 
and sensibility so intense, that the bodily infirmity would 
be likely to have its ground-work there. So Roger 
Chillingworth — the man of skill, the kind and friendly 
physician — strove to go deep into his patient’s bosom, 
delving among his principles, prying into his recollec- 
tions, and probing everything with a cautious touch, 
like a treasure-seeker in a dark cavern. Few secrets 
can escape an investigator, who has opportunity and 
license to undertake such a quest, and skill to follow it 
up. A man burdened with a secret should especially 
avoid the intimacy of his physician. If the latter pos- 
sess native sagacity, and a nameless something more, — 
let us call it intuition ; if he show no intrusive egotism, 
nor disagreeably prominent characteristics of his own ; 
if he have the power, which must be born with him, to 
bring his min 1 into such affinity with his patient’s, that 
this last shall unawares have spokeu what he imagines 
himself only to have thought; if such revelations be 


THE LEECH. 


143 


received without tumult, and acknowledged not so often 
by an uttered sympathy as by silence, an inarticulate 
breath, and hern and there a word, to indicate that all is 
understood ; if to these qualifications of a confidant be 
joined the advantages afforded by his recognized charac- 
ter as a physician ; — then, at some inevitable moment, 
will the soul of the sufferer be dissolved, and flow forth 
in a dark, but transparent stream, bringing all its myste- 
ries into the daylight. 

Roger Chillingworth possessed all, or most, of the 
attributes above enumerated. Nevertheless, time went 
on ; a kind of intimacy, as we have said, grew up between 
these two cultivated minds, which had as wide a field as 
the whole sphere of human thought and study, to meet 
upon ; they discussed every topic of ethics and religion, 
of public affairs, and private character; they talked much, 
on both sides, of matters that seemed personal to them- 
selves ; and yet no secret, such as the physician fancied 
must exist there, ever stole out of the minister’s con- 
sciousness into his companion’s ear. The latter had his 
suspicions, indeed, that even the nature of Mr. Dimmes- 
dale’s bodily disease had never fairly been revealed to 
him. It was a strange reserve ! 

After a time, at a hint from Roger Chillingworth, the 
friends of Mr. Dimmesdale effected an arrangement by 
which the two were lodged in the same house ; so that 
every ebb and flow of the minister’s life-tide might pass 
under the eye of his anxious and attached physician. 
There was much joy throughout the town, when this 
greatly desirable object was attained. It was he. Id to be 
the best possib e measure for the young clergyman’s 
welfare : unless, indeed, as often urged by such as fell 


144 THE SCARLET LETTER. 

authorized to do so, he had selected some one of the 
many blooming damsels, spiritually devoted to him, to 
become his devoted wife. This latter step, however, 
there was no present prospect that Arthur Dimmesdale 
would be prevailed upon to take ; he rejected all sugges- 
tions of the kind, as if priestly celibacy were one of his 
articles of church-discipline. Doomed by his own choice, 
therefore, as Mr. Dimmesdale so evidently was, to eat 
his unsavory morsel always at another’s board, and en- 
dure the life-long chill which must be his lot who seeks 
to warm himself only at another’s fireside, it truly seemed 
that this sagacious, experienced, benevolent old physi- 
cian, with his concord of paternal and reverential love 
for the young pastor, was the very man, of all mankind, 
to be constantly within reach of his voice. 

The new abode of the two friends was with a pious 
widow, of good social rank, who dwelt in a house cover- 
ing pretty nearly the site on which the venerable struc- 
ture of King’s Chapel has since been built. It had the 
grave-yard, originally Isaac Johnson’s home-field, on one 
side, and so was well adapted to call up serious reflec- 
tions, suited to their respective employments, in both 
minister and man of physic. The motherly care of the 
good widow assigned to Mr. Dimmesdale a front apart- 
ment, with a sunny exposure, and heavy window-curtains , 
to create a noontide shadow, when desirable. I The walls 
were hung round with tapestry, said to be from the 
Gobelin looms, and, at all events, representing the Scrip- 
tural story of David and Bathsheba, and Nathan the 
Prophet, in colors still unfaded, but which made the fair 
woman of the scene almost as grimly picturesque as the 
woe-denouncing seer. Here, the pale clergyman piled 


THE LEECH. 


145 


np his library, rich with parchment-bound folios of the 
Fathers, and the lore of Rabbis, and monkish erudition, 
of which the Protestant divines, even while they vilified 
and decried that class of writers, were yet constrained 
often to avail themselves. On the other side of the 
house, old Roger Chillingworth arranged his study and 
laboratory ; not such as a modern man of science would 
reckon even tolerably complete, but provided with a dis- 
tilling apparatus, and the means of compounding drugs 
md chemicals, which the practised alchemist knew well 
how to turn to purpose. With such commodiousness 
of situation, these two learned persons sat themselves 
down, eacn in his own domain, yet familiarly passing 
from one apartment to the other, and bestowing a mu- 
tual and not incurious inspection into one another’s 
business. 

And the Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale’s best discern- 
ing friends, as we have intimated, very reasonably imag- 
ined that the hand of Providence had done all this, for 
the purpose — besought in so many public, and domestic, 
and secret prayers — of restoring the young minister to 
health. But — it must now be said — another portion 
of the community had latterly begun to take its own view 
of the relation betwixt Mr. Dimmesdale and the myste- 
rious old physician. When an uninstructed multitude 
attempts to see with its eyes, it is exceedingly apt to be 
deceived. When, however, it forms its judgment, as it 
usually does, on the intuitions of its great and warm 
heart, the conclusions thus attained are often so profound 
and so unerring, as to possess the character of truths 
eupematu rally revealed. The people, in the case of 
which wc speak, could justify its prejudice against Roge* 
10 


146 


THE SCARLET LETTER. 


Chilling wci th by no fact or argument worthy of seriou* 
refutation. There was an aged handicraftsman, it is 
true, who had been a citizen of London at the period of 
Sir Thomas Overbury’s murder, now some thirty yea r3 
agone ; he testified to having seen the physician, under 
some other name, which the narrator of the story had 
now forgotten, in company with Doctor Forman, the 
famous old conjurer, who was implicated in the affair of 
Overbury. Two or three individuals hinted, that the 
man of skill, during his Indian captivity, had enlarged 
his medical attainments by joining in the incantations 
of the savage priests ; who were universally acknowl- 
edged to be powerful enchanters, often performing seem- 
ingly miraculous cures by their skill in the black art. 
A large number — and many of these were persons of 
such sober sense and practical observation that theii 
opinions would have been valuable, in other matters — 
affirmed that Roger Chillingworth’s aspect had under- 
gone a remarkable change while he had dwelt in town, 
and especially since his abode with Mr. Dimmesdaic. 
At first, his expression had been calm, meditative, scholar- 
like. Now, there was something ugly and evil in his 
face, which they had not previously noticed, and which 
grew still the more obvious to sight, the oftener the' 
looked upon him. According to the vulgar ilea, th» 
fire in his laboratory had been brought from the lowe 
regions, and was fed with infernal fuel; and so, a. 
might be expected, his visage was getting sooty with tht 
smoke. 

To sum up the matter, it grew to be a widely diffused 
opinion, that the Reverend Arthur Dimmest! ale, like 
many other personages of especial sanctity, in all ages 


THL LEECH. 


i n 


of the Christian world, was haunted either by Satan 
himself, or Satan’s emissary, in the guise of old Roger 
Chillingworth. This diabolical agent had the Divine 
permission, for a season, to burrow into the clergyman’s 
intimacy, and plot against his soul. No sensible man, 
it was confessed, could doubt on which side the victory 
would turn. The people looked, with an unshaken hope, 
to see the minister come forth out of the conflict, trans- 
figured with the glory which he would unquestionably 
win. Meanwhile, nevertheless, it was sad to think of 
the perchance mortal agony through which he must 
struggle towards his triumph. 

Alas! to judge from the gloom and terror in the depths 
of the poor minister’s eyes, the battle was a sore one and 
the victory anything but secure 


t48 


THE SCARIJST LETTER. 


X. 

THE LEECH AND HIS PATIEN1 

Oil Roger Chillingworth, throughout life, had been 
culm in temperament, kindly, though not of warm affec- 
tions, but ever, and in all his relations with the world, a 
pure and upright man. He had begun an investigation, 
as he imagined, with the severe and equal integrity of a 
judge, desirous only of truth, even as if the question 
involved no more than the air-drawn lines and figures 
of a geometrical problem, instead of human passions, and 
wrongs inflicted on himself. But, as he proceeded, a 
terrible fascination, a kind of fierce, though still calm, 
necessity seized the old man within its gripe, and never 
set him free again, until he had done all its bidding. 
He now dug into the poor clergyman’s heart, like a 
miner searching for gold ; or, rather, like a sexton delv- 
ing into a grave, possibly in quest of a jewel that had 
been buried on the dead man’s bosom, but likely to find 
nothing save mortality and corruption. Alas for his own 
soul, if these were what he sought ! 

Sometimes, a light glimmered out of the physician’s 
eyes, burning blue and ominous, like the reflection of a 
furnace, or, let us say, like one of those gleams of ghastly 
fire that darted from Bunyan’s awful door- way in the 
hill-side, and quivered on the pilgrim’s face. The soil 
where this dark miner was working had perchance shown 
indications that encouraged him. 

“ This man,’’ said he, at one such moment, to him- 


VHE LEECH AND HIS PATIENT. 


149 


feel), ‘ pure as they deem him, — all spiritual as he seems, 
— hath inherited a strong animal nature from his fathe: 
or his mother. Let us dig a little further in the direc- 
tion of this vein ! ” 

Then, after long search into the minister’s dim inte- 
rior, and turning over many precious materials, in the 
shape of high aspirations for the welfare of his race, 
warm love of souls, pure sentiments, natural piety, 
strengthened by thought and study, and illuminated by 
Tevelation, — all of which invaluable gold was perhaps 
10 better than rubbish to the seeker, — he would turn 
back, discouraged, and begin his quest towards another 
point. He groped along as stealthily, with as cautious 
a tread, and as wary an outlook, as a thief entering a 
chamber where a man lies only half asleep, — or, it may 
be, broad awake, — with purpose to steal the very treas- 
ure which this man guards as the apple of his eye. In 
spite of his premeditated carefulness, the floor would 
now and then creak; his garments would rustle; the 
shadow of his presence, in a forbidden proximity, would 
be thrown across his victim. In other words, Mr. Dim- 
mesdale, whose sensibility of nerve often produced the 
effect of spiritual intuition, would become vaguely aware 
that something inimical to his peace had thrust itself 
into relation with him. But old Roger Chillingworth, 
too, had perceptions that were almost intuitive; and 
when the minister threw his startled eyes towards him, 
there the physician sat; his kind, watchful, sympathiz- 
ing, but never intrusive friend. 

Yet Mr. Dimmesdale would perhaps have seen this 
individual’s character more perfectly, if a certain mor- 
bidness. to which sick hearts are fable, had not reu 


150 


THE SCARLET LETTER. 


dered him suspicious of all mankind. Trusting no man 
as his friend, he could not recognize his enemy when 
the latter actually appeared. He therefore still kept up 
a familiar intercourse w ith him, daily receiving the old 
physician in his study ; or visiting the laboratory, and 
for recreation’s sake, watching the processes by which 
weeds were converted into drugs of potency. 

One day, leaning his forehead on his hand, and his 
elbow on the sill of the open window, that looked 
towards the grave-yard, he talked with Roger Chilling- 
worth, while the old man was examining a bundle of 
unsightly plants. 

“ Where,” asked he, with a look askance at them, — 
for it was the clergyman’s peculiarity that he seldom, 
now-a-days, looked straightforth at any object, whether 
human or inanimate — “where, my kind doctor, did 
you gather those herbs, with such a dark, flabby leaf?” 

“Even in the grave-yard here at hand,” answered 
the physician, continuing his employment. “ They are 
new to me. I found them growing on a grave, which 
bore no tomb-stone, nor other memorial of the dead man, 
save these ugly weeds, that have taken upon themselves 
to keep him in remembrance. They grew out of his 
heart, and typify, it may be, some hideous secret that 
was buried with him, and which he had done better to 
confess during his lifetime.” 

“Perchance,” said Mr. Dimmesdale, “he earnestly 
desired it, but could not.” 

“And wherefore?” rejoined the physician. “Where- 
fore not ; since all the pow T ers of nature call so earnestly 
foi the confession of sin, that these black weeds have 


THL LEECH ..ND IIIS PATIENT. 


151 


spining up out of a buried heart, to make manifest an 
unspoken crime ? ” 

“ That, good Sir, is but a fantasy of yours,” replied 
the mli.uter. “ There can be, if I forebode aright, no 
power, short of the Divine mercy, to disclose, whether 
by uttered words, or by type or emblem, the secrets that 
may be buried with a human heart. The heart, making 
itself guilty of such secrets, must perforce hold them, 
until the day when all hidden things shall be revealed. 
Nor have I so read or interpreted Holy Writ, as to 
understand that the disclosure of numan thoughts and 
deeds, then to be made, is intended as a part of the retri 
bution. That, surely, were a shallow view of it. No ; 
these revelations, unless I greatly err, are meant merely 
to promote the intellectual satisfaction of all intelligent 
beings, who will stand waiting, on that day, to see the 
dark problem of this life made plain. A knowledge of 
men’s hearts will be needful to the completest solution 
of that problem. And I conceive, moreover, that the 
hearts holding such miserable secrets as you speak of 
will yield them up, at that last day, not with reluctance, 
but with a joy unutterable.” 

“ Then why not reveal them here ? ” asked Ro'ger 
Chillingworth, glancing quietly aside at the minister. 
“ Why should not the guilty ones sooner avai 1 them- 
selves of this unutterable solace ? ” 

“ They mostly do,” said the clergyman, griping hard 
at his breast, as if afflicted with an importunate throb of 
pain. “ Many, many a poor soul hath given its confi- 
dence to me, not only on the death-bed, but while strong 
in life, and fair in reputation. And ever, after such an 
trotpouring, O, what a relief have 1 witnessed in those 


152 


THE SCARLET LETTER. 


sinful brethren! even as in one who at last draws free 
air, after long stifling with his own polluted breath. 
How can it be otherwise ? Why should a wretched 
man, guilty, we will say, of murder, prefer to keep 
the dead corpse buried in his own heart, rather than 
fling it forth at once, and let the universe take caie 
of it!” 

“ Yet some men bury their secrets thus.” observed the 
calm physician. 

“ True ; there are such men.” answered Mr. Dimmer 
dale. “ But, not to suggest more obvious reasons, it may 
be that they are kept silent by the very constitution 
of their nature. Or, — can we not suppose it? — guilty 
as they may be, retaining, nevertheless, a zeal for God’s 
glory and man’s welfare, they shrink from displaying 
themselves black and filthy in the view of men ; be- 
cause, thenceforward, no good can be achieved by them ; 
no evil of the past be redeemed by better service. So, 
to their own unutterable torment, they go about among 
their fellow-creatures, looking pure as new-fallen snow 
while their hearts are all speckled and spotted wit* 
iniquity of which they cannot rid themselves.” 

%x These men deceive themselves,” said Roger Chil 
lingworth, with somewhat more emphasis than usual 
and making a slight gesture with his forefinger. 
“ They fear to take up the shame that rightfully belongs 
to them. Their love for man, their zeal for God’s ser- 
vice, — these holy impulses may or may not coexist in 
their hearts with the evil inmates to which their guilt 
has unbarred the door, and which must needs propagate 
a hellish breed within them. But, if they seek to glo« 
rify God, let them not lift heavenward their unclean 


THE LEECH AND IIIS PATIENT. 


153 


hands If tney would serve their fellow-men, let them 
do it by making manifest the power and reality of 
conscience, in constraining them to penitential self- 
abasement! Wouldst thou have me to believe, 0 wise 
and pious friend, that a false show can be better — can 
be more for God’s glory, or man’s welfare — than 
God’s own truth ? Trust me, such men deceive them- 
selves ! ” 

“ It may be so,” said the young clergyman, indiffer- 
ently as waiving a discussion that he considered irrele 
vant or unseasonable. He had a ready faculty, indeed, 
of escaping from any topic that agitated his too sensitive 
and nervous temperament. — “ But, now, I would ask 
of my well-skilled physician, whether, in good sooth, he 
deems me to have profited by his kindly care of this 
weak frame of mine ? ” 

Before Roger Chillingworth could answer, they heard 
the clear, wild laughter of a young child’s voice, pro- 
ceeding from the adjacent burial-ground. Looking 
instinctively from the open window, — for it was sum- 
mer-time, — the minister beheld Hester Prynne and 
little Pearl passing along the foot-path that traversed the 
enclosure. Pearl looked as beautiful as the day, bat 
was in one of those moods of perverse merriment 
which, whenever they occurred, seemed to remove her 
entirely out of the sphere of sympathy or human contact. 
She now skipped irreverently from one grave to another ; 
until, coming to the broad, flat, armorial tomb-stone of a 
departed worthy, — perhaps of Isaac Johnson himself, 
— she began to dance upon it. In reply to her mother’s 
command and entreaty that she would behave more 
decorously, little Pearl paused to gather the prickly 


154 


THE SCARLET LETTER. 


burrs from a tall burdock which grew beside the tomb 
Taking a handful of these, she arranged them along the 
lines of the scarlet letter that decorated the maternal 
bosom, to which the burrs, as their nature was, tena- 
ciously adhered. Hester did not pluck them off. 

Roger Chillingworth had by this time approached the 
window, and smiled grimly down. 

“ There is no law, nor reverence for authority, no 
regard for human ordinances or opinions, right or 
wrong, mixed up with that child’s composition,” re- 
marked he, as much to himself as to his companion , 
“ I saw her, the other day, bespatter the Governor him- 
self with water, at the cattle-trough in Spring-lane. 
What, in Heaven’s name, is she ? Is the imp altogether 
evil? Hath she affections? Hath she any discovera- 
ble principle of being ? ” 

“ None, — save the freedom of a broken law,” an- 
swered Mr. Dimmesdale, in a quiet way, as if he had 
been discussing the point within himself. “Whether 
capable of good, I know not.” 

The child probably overheard their voices ; for, look- 
ing up to the window, with a bright, but naughty smile 
of mirth and intelligence, she threw one of the prickly 
burrs at the Reverend Mr. Dimmesdale. The sensitive 
clergyman shrunk, with nervous dread, from the light 
missile. Detecting his emotion, Pearl clapped her little 
hands, in the most extravagant ecstacy. Hester Prynne, 
likewise, had involuntarily looked up; and all these 
four persons, old and young, regarded one another in 
silence, till the child laughed aloud, and shouted, — 
“Come away, mother! Come away, or yonder old 
Black Man will catch you ! He hath got hold of the 


THE LEECH AND HIS PATIENT. 


155 


ministir already. Come away, mother, or he will catch 
you ! But he cannot catch little Pearl ! 

So she drew her mother away, skipping, dancing, 
and frisking fantastically, among the hillocks of the 
dead people, like a creature that had nothing in com* 
mon with a bygone and buried generation, nor owned 
herself akin to it. It was as if she had been made 
afresh, out of new elements, and must perforce be per- 
mitted to live her own life, and be a law unto herself, 
without her eccentricities being reckoned to her for a 
crime. 

“There goes a woman,” resumed Roger Chilling- 
worth, after a pause, “ who, be her demerits what they 
may, hath none of that mystery of hidden sinfulness 
which you deem so grievous to be borne. Is Hester 
Prynne the less miserable, think you, for that scarlet 
letter on her breast ? ” 

“ I do verily believe it,” answered the clergyman. 
“ Nevertheless, I cannot answer for her. There was 
a look of pain in her face, which I would gladly have 
been spared the sight of. But still, methinks, it must 
needs be better for the sufferer to be free to show his 
pain, as this poor woman Hester is, than to cover it all 
up in his heart.” 

There was another pause ; and the physician began 
anew to examine and arrange the plants which he had 
gathered. 

“ You inquired of me, a little time agone,” said he, 
at length, “ my judgment as touching your health.” 

I did,” answered the clergyman, and would gladly 
learn it. “ Speak frankly, I pray you, be it for life o 
death ” 


156 


THE SCARLET LETTER. 


“ Freely, then, and plainly,” said the physician, still 
busy with his plants, but keeping a wary eye on Mr 
Dimmesdale, “ the disorder is a strange one ; not so 
much in itself, nor as outwardly manifested, — in so 
far, at least, as the symptoms have been laid open to 
my observation. Looking daily at you, my good Sir, 
and watching the tokens of your aspect, now for months 
gone by, 1 should deem you a man sore sick, it may be, 
yet not so sick but that an instructed and watchful phy- 
sician might well hope to cure you. But — I know not 
vhat to say — the disease is what I seem to know, yet 
know it not.” 

“ You speak in riddles, learned Sir,” said the pale 
minister, glancing aside out of the window. 

“ Then, to speak more plainly,” continued the phy- 
sician, “and I crave pardon, Sir, — should it seem to 
require pardon, — for this needful plainness of my speech. 
Let me ask, — as your friend, — as one having charge, 
under Providence, of your life and physical well-being, 
— hath all the operation of this disorder been fairly laid 
open and recounted to me ? ” 

“How can you question it?” asked the minister. 
“ Surely, it were child’s play, to call in a physician, and 
then hide the sore ! ” 

“You would tell me, then, that I know all?” said 
Roger Chillingworth, deliberately, and fixing an eye ; 
bright with intense and concentrated intelligence, on 
the minister’s face. “ Be it so ! But, again ! He to 
whom only the outward and physical evil is laid open, 
knoweth, oftentimes, but half the evil which he is called 
upon to cure. A bodily disease, which we look upon 
whrdp an 1 entire within itself, may, after all- be but 


TI1E LEECH AND HIS PATIENT. 


157 


a symptom of some ailment in the spiritual part Youi 
pardon, once again, good Sir, if my speech give the 
shadow of offence. You, Sir, of all men whom I have 
known, are he whose body is the closest conjoined, and 
imbued, and identified, so io speak, with the spirit 
whereof it is the instrument.” 

“ Then I need ask no further,” said the clergyman, 
somewhat hastily rising from his chair. “ You deal not, 
I take it, in medicine for the soul ! ” 

“ Thus, a sickness,” continued Roger Chillingworth, 
going on, in an unaltered tone, without heeding the 
interruption, — -but standing up, and confronting the 
emaciated and white-cheeked minister, with his low, 
dark, and misshapen figure, — “a sickness, a sore place, 
if we may so call it, in your spirit, hath immediately 
its appropriate manifestation in your bodily frame. 
Would you, therefore, that your physician heal the 
bodily evil? How may this be, unless you first lay 
open to him the wound or trouble in your soul ? ” 

“ No ! — not to thee ! — not to an earthly physician ! ” 
cried Mr. Dimmesdale, passionately, and turning his 
eyes, full and bright, and with a kind of fierceness, on 
old Roger Chillingworth. “ Not to thee ! But, if it be 
the soul’s disease, then do I commit myself to the one 
Physician of the soul! He, if it stand with his good 
pleasuie, can cure; or he can kill! Let him do with 
me as, in his justice and wisdom, he shall see good. 
But who art thou, that meddlest in this matter ? — that 
dares thrust himself between the sufferer and his God ? ” 
With a frantic gesture, he rushed out of the room. 

“ It is as well to have made this step,” said K ?ger 
Chillingworth to himself, looking after the minister 


158 


THE SCARLET LETTER. 


a grave smile. “ There is nothing lost. We shall be 
friends again anon. But see, now, how passion takes 
hold upon this man, and hurrieth him out of himself! 
As with one passion, so with another ! He hath done 
a wild thing ere now, this pious Master Dimmesdale, 
in the hot passion of his heart ! ” 

It proved not difficult to reestablish the intimacy of 
the two companions, on the same footing and in the 
same degree as heretofore. The young clergyman, 
after a few hours of privacy, was sensible that the dis- 
order of his nerves had hurried him into an unseemly 
outbreak of temper, which there had been nothing in 
the physician’s words to excuse or palliate. He mar- 
velled, indeed, at the violence with which he had thrust 
back the kind old man, when merely proffering the 
advice which it was his duty to bestow, and which the 
minister himself had expressly sought. With these re- 
morseful feelings, he lost no time in making the amplest 
apologies, and besought his friend still to continue the 
care, which, if not successful in restoring him to health, 
had, in all probability, been the means of prolonging his 
feeble existence to that hour. Roger Chillingworth 
readily assented, and went on with his medical super- 
vision of the minister; doing his best for him, in oil 
good faith, but always quitting the patient’s apartment, 
at the close of a professional interview, with a mysteri- 
ous and puzzled smile upon his lips. This expression 
was invisible in Mr. Dimmesdale ’s presence, but grew 
strongly evident as the physician crossed the thresh- 
old. 

“A rare case!” he muttered. “ I must needs look 
deeper intG it. A strange sympathy betwixt soul and 


THE LEECn AND HIS PATIENT. 


159 


body! Were it only for the art's sake, I must search 
this matter to the bottom ! ” 

It came to pass, not long after the scene above re- 
corded, that the Reverend Mr. Dimmesdale, at noon- 
day, and entirely unawares, fell into a deep, deep slum- 
ber, sitting in his chair, with a large black-letter volume 
open before him on the table. It must have been a 
work of vast ability in the somniferous school of litera- 
ture. The profound depth of the minister’s repose was 
the more remarkable, inasmuch as he was one of those 
persons whose sleep, ordinarily, is as light, as fitful, and 
as easily scared away, as a small bird hopping on a twig. 
To such an unwonted remoteness, however, had his 
spirit now withdrawn into itself, that he stiired not in 
his chair, when old Roger Chillingworth, without any 
extraordinary precaution, came into the room. The phy- 
sician advanced directly in front of his patient, laid his 
hand upon his bosom, and thrust aside the vestment, 
that, hitherto, had always covered it even from the pro- 
fessional eye. 

Then, indeed, Mr. Dimmesdale shuddered, and slight- 
ly stirred. 

After a brief pause, the physician turned away. 

But, with what a wild look of wonder, joy, and 
horror! With what a ghastly rapture, as it were, too 
mighty to be expressed only by the eye and features, 
and therefore bursting forth through the whole ugliness 
oi his figure, and making itself even riotously manifest 
by the extravagant gestures with which he threw up his 
arms towards the ceiling, and stamped his foot upon 
the floor! Had a man seen old Roger Chillingworth, 
it that moment of his ecstacy, he would have had d/j 


160 


THE SCARLET ^E'iTER. 


need to ask how Satan comports himself, when a pre* 
cious human soul is lost to Heaven, and won into Ins 
kingdom. 

But what distinguished the physician’s ecstacy from 
Satan’s was the trait of wonder in it ! 


THE INTERIOR OF A HEART. 


XI. 

THE INTERIOR OF A HEART. 

After the incident last described, the intercourse 
between the clergyman and the physician, though ex- 
ternally the same, was really of another character than 
it had previously been. The intellect of Roger Chil- 
lingworth had now a sufficiently plain path before it. 
It was not, indeed, precisely that which he had laid out 
for himself to tread. Calm, gentle, passionless, as he 
appeared, there was yet, we fear, a quiet depth of malice, 
hitherto latent, but active now, in this unfortunate old 
man, which led him to imagine a more intimate revenge 
than any mortal had ever wreaked upon an enemy. To 
make himself the one trusted friend, to whom should be 
confided all the fear, the remorse, the agony, the ineffect- 
ual repentance, the backward rush of sinful thoughts, 
expelled in vain ! All that guilty sorrow, hidden from 
the world, whose great heart would have pitied and for- 
given, to be revealed to him, the Pitiless, to him, the 
Unforgiving ! All that dark treasure to be lavished on 
the very man, to whom nothing else could so adequately 
pay the debt of vengeance ! 

The clergyman’s shy and sensitive reserve had balked 
this scheme. Roger Chillingworth, however, was in- 
clined to be hardly, if at all, less satisfied with the aspect 
of affairs, which Providence — using the avenger and 
his victim for its own purposes, and, perchance, pardon- 
ing, where it seemed most to punish — had substituted 

n 


the scarlet letter. 

for his black devices. A revelation, he could almost say 
had been granted to him. It mattered little, for his ob* 
ject, whether celestial, or from what other region. By 
its aid, in all the subsequent relations betwixt him and 
Mr. Dimmesdale, not merely the external presence, but 
the very inmost soul, of the latter, seemed to be brought 
out before his eyes, so that he could see and comprehend 
its every movement. He became, thenceforth, not a 
spectator only, but a chief actor, in the poor minister’s 
interior world. He could play upon him as he chose. 
Would he arouse him with a throb of agony ? The vic- 
tim was forever on the rack ; it needed only to know the 
spring that controlled the engine ; — and the physician 
knew it well ! Would he startle him with sudden fear? 
As at the waving of a magician’s wand, uprose a grisly 
phantom, — uprose a thousand phantoms, — in many 
shapes, of death, or more awful shame, all flocking round 
about the clergyman, and pointing with their fingers at 
his breast ! 

All this was accomplished with a subtlety so perfect, 
that the minister, though he had constantly a dim per- 
ception of some evil influence watching over him, could 
never gain a knowledge of its actual nature. True, lie 
looked doubtfully, fearfully, — even, at times, with hor- 
ror and ths bitterness of hatred, — at the deformed figure 
of the old physician. His gestures, his gait, his grizzled 
beard, his slightest and most indifferent acts, the very 
fashion of his garments, were odious in the clergyman’s 
sight; a token implicitly to be relied on, of a deeper an- 
tipathy in the breast of the latter than he was willing to 
acknowledge to himself. For, as it was impossible to 
assign a reason for such distrust and abhorrence, so Mr 


THE INTERIOR OF A HEART. 


163 


Dimmesdale, conscious that the poison of one morbid 
spot was infecting his heart’s entire substance, attributed 
all his presentiments to no other cause. He took him- 
self to task for his bad s^unpathies in reference to Roger 
Chill ingworth, disregarded the lesson that he should 
have drawn from them, and did his best to root them out. 
Unable to accomplish this, he nevertheless, as a matter 
of principle, continued his habits of social familiarity 
with the old man, and thus gave him constant opportu- 
nities for perfecting the purpose to which — poor, for- 
lorn creature that he was, and more wretched than his 
victim — the avenger had devoted himself. 

While thus suffering under bodily disease, and gnawed 
and tortured by some black trouble of the soul, and given 
over to the machinations of his deadliest enemy, the 
Reverend Mr. Dimmesdale had achieved a brilliant pop- 
ularity in his sacred office. He won it, indeed, in great 
part, by his sorrows. His intellectual gifts, his moral 
perceptions, his power of experiencing and communi- 
cating emotion, were kept in a state of preternatural activ- 
ity by the prick and anguish of his daily life. His fame, 
though still on its upward slope, already overshadowed 
die soberer reputations of his fellow-clergymen, eminent 
as several of them were. There were scholars among 
them, who had spent mor6 years in acquiring abstruse 
lore, connected with the divine profession, than Mr. Dim- 
mesdale had lived ; and who might well, therefore, be 
more profoundly versed in such solid and valuable at- 
tainments than their youthful brother. There were ~xt*n, 
too, of a sturdier texture of mind than his, and endowed 
with a lar greater share of shrewd, hard, iron, or granite 
understanding ; which, duly mingled with a fair proper 


Ib4 


THE SCARLET LETTER. 


tion of doctrinal ingredient, constitutes a highly respect 
able, efficacious, and unamiable variety of the clerical 
species. There were others, again, true saintly fathers, 
whose faculties had been elaborated by weary toil among 
their books, and by patient thought, and etherealized, 
moreover, by spiritual communications with the better 
world, into which their purity of life had almost intio- 
duced these holy personages, with their garments of mor- 
tality still clinging to them. All that they lacked was 
the gift that descended upon the chosen disciples at Pen- 
tecost, in tongues of flame; symbolizing, it would seem, 
not the power of speech in foreign and unknown lan- 
guages, but that of addressing the whole human brother- 
hood in the heart’s native language. These fathers, oth- 
erwise so apostolic, lacked Heaven’s last and rarest 
attestation of their office, the Tongue of Flame. They 
would have vainly sought — had they ever dreamed of 
seeking — to express the highest truths through the hum- 
blest medium of familiar words and images. Their 
voices came down, afar and indistinctly, from the upper 
heights where they habitually dwelt. 

Not improbably, it was to this latter class of men that 
Mr. Dimmesdale, by many of his traits of character, 
naturally belonged. To the high mountain-peaks of 
faith and sanctity he would have climbed, had not the 
tendency been thwarted by the burden, whatever it 
might be, of crime or anguish, beneath which it was his 
doom to totter. It kept him down, on a level with the 
lowest; him, the man of ethereal attributes, whose 
voice the angels might else have listened to and an- 
swered ! But this very burden it was, that gave him 
sympathies so intimate with the sinful brotherhood of 


THE INTERIOR OF A HEART. 


16 ft 


mankind ; so that his heart vibrated in unison with 
theirs, and received their pain into itself, and sent its 
own throb of pain through a thousand other hearts, in 
gushes of sad, persuasive eloquence, Oftenest persua- 
sive, but sometimes terrible ! The people knew not the 
power that moved them thus. They deemed the young 
clergyman a miracle of holiness. They fancied him the 
mouth-piece of Heaven’s messages of wisdom, and re- 
buke, and love. In their eyes, the very ground on which 
he trod was sanctified. The virgins of his church grew 
pale around him, victims of a passion so imbued with 
religious sentiment that they imagined it to be all re- 
ligion, and brought it openly, in their white bosoms, as 
their most acceptable sacrifice before the altar. The 
aged members of his flock, beholding Mr. Dimmesdale’s 
frame so feeble, while they were themselves so rugged in 
their infirmity, believed that he would go heavenward 
before them, and enjoined it upon their children, that 
their old bones should be buried close to their young pas- 
tor’s holy grave. And, all this time, perchance, when 
poor Mr. Dimmesdale was thinking of his grave, he 
questioned with himself whether the grass would ever 
grow on it, because an accursed thing must there be 
buried ! 

It is inconceivable, the agony with which this public 
veneration tortured him ! It was his genuine impulse to 
adore the truth, and to reckon all things shadow-like, 
and utterly devoid of weight or value, that had not its 
divine essence as the life within their life. Then, what 
was he ? — a substance ? — or the dimmest of all shad- 
ows ? He longed to speak out, from his own pulpit, at 
the full height of his voice, and tell the people what he 


106 THE SCARLET LETTER. 

was. “ I, whom you behold in these black garments of 
the priesthood, — I, who ascend the sacred desk, and 
turn my pale face heavenward, taking upon myself to 
hold communion, in your behalf, with the Most High 
Omniscience, — I, in whose daily life you discern the 
sanctity of Enoch, — I, whose footsteps, as you suppose, 
leave a gleam along my earthly track, whereby the pil- 
grims that shall come after me may be guided to the 
regions of the blest, — I, who have laid the hand of bap- 
tism upon your children, — I, who have breathed the 
parting prayer over your dying friends, to whom the 
Amen sounded faintly from a world which they had 
quitted, — I, your pastor, whom you so reverence and 
trust, am utterly a pollution and a lie ! ” 

More than once, Mr. Dimmesdale had gone into the 
pulpit, with a purpose never to come down its steps, until 
he should have spoken words like the above. More than 
once, he had cleared his throat, and drawn in the long, 
deep, and tremulous breath, which, when sent forth again, 
would come burdened with the black secret of his soul. 
More than once — nay, more than a hundred times — 
he had actually spoken ! Spoken ! But how ? He had 
told his hearers that he was altogether vile, a viler com- 
panion of the vilest, the worst of sinners, an abomina- 
tion, a thing of unimaginable iniquity ; and that the only 
wonder was, that they did not see his wretched body 
shrivelled up before their eyes, by the burning wrath of 
the Almighty ! Could there be plainer speech than this ? 
Would not the people start up in their seats, bra simul- 
taneous impulse, and tear him down out of t\e pulpit 
which he defiled ? Not so, indeed ! They heard it 
all, and did but reverence him the more. They little 


THB INTERIOR OF A HEART. 


167 


gueysed what deadly purport lurked in those self-con- 
demning words. “ The godly youth ! ” said they among 
themselves. “ The saint on earth ! Alas, if he discern 
such sinfulness in his own white soul, what horrid spec- 
tacle would he behold in thine or mine ! ” The minister 
well knew — subtle, but remorseful hypocrite that lie 
was ! — the light in which his vague confession would 
be viewed. He had striven to put a cheat upon himself 
by making the avowal of a guilty conscience, but had 
gained only one other sin, and a self-acknowledged 
shame, without the momentary relief of being self-de- 
ceived. He had spoken the very truth, and transformed 
it into the veriest falsehood. And yet, by the constitu- 
tion of his nature, he loved the truth, and loathed the 
lie, as few men ever did. Therefore, above all things 
else, he loathed his miserable self!' 

His inward trouble drove him to practices more in 
accordance with the old, corrupted faith of Rome, than 
with the better light of the church in which he had been 
bom and bred. In Mr. Dimmesdale’s secret closet, under 
lock and key, there was a bloody scourge. Oftentimes, 
this Protestant # and Puritan divine had plied it on his 
own shoulders ; laughing bitterly at himself the while, 
and smiting so much the more pitilessly because of that 
bitter laugh. It was his custom, too, as it has been that 
of many other pious Puritans, to fast, — not, however, 
like them, in order to purify the body and render it the 
titter medium of celestial illumination, but rigorously, 
and until his knees trembled beneath him, as an act cf 
penance. He kept vigils, likewise, night after night, 
sometimes in utter darkness ; sometimes with a glim- 
mering lamp ; and sometimes, viewing his own face in o 


168 


THE SCARLET LETTER. 


looking-glass, by the most powerful light which he could 
throw upon it. He thus typified the constant intro- 
spection wherewith he tortured, but could not purify, 
himself. In these lengthened vigils, his brain often 
reeled, and visions seemed to flit before him ; perhaps 
seen doubtfully, and by a faint light of their own, in the 
remote dimness of the chamber, or more vividly, and 
close beside him, within the looking-glass. Now it was 
a herd of diabolic shapes, that grinned and mocked at 
the pale minister, and beckoned him away with them ; 
now a group of shining angels, who flew upward heavily, 
as sorrow-laden, but grew more ethereal as they rose. 
Now came the dead friends of his youth, and his white- 
bearded father, with a saint-like frown, and his mother, 
turning her face away as she passed by. Ghost of a 
mother, — thinnest fantasy of a mother, — methinks she 
might yet have thrown a pitying glance towards her son ! 
And now, through the chamber which these spectral 
thoughts had made so ghastly, glided Hester Prynne, 
leading along little Pearl, in her scarlet garb, and point- 
ing her forefinger, first at the scarlet lettej on her bosom, 
and then at the clergyman’s own breast. 

None of these visions ever quite deluded him. At any 
moment, by an effort of his will, he could discern sub- 
stances through their misty lack of substance, and con- 
vince himself that they were not solid in their nature, 
like yonder table of carved oak, or that big, square, 
leathern-bound and brazen-clasped volume of divinity. 
But, for all that, they were, in one sense, the truest and 
most substantial things which the poor minister now 
dealt with. It is the unspeakable misery of a life so 
false as his, that it steals the pith and substance out of 


TflE INTERIOR OF A HR^RT. lt>9 

whatever realities there are around us, and which were 
meant by Heaven to be the spirit’s joy and nutriment. 
To the untrue man, the whole universe is false, — it is 
impalpable, — it shrinks to nothing within his grasp. 
And he himself, in so far as he shows himself in a false 
light, becomes a shadow, or, indeed, ceases to exist. The 
only truth that continued to give Mr. Dimmesdale a rea' 
existence on this earth, was the anguish in his inmost 
soul, and the undissembled expression of it in his aspect. 
Had he once found power to smile, and wear a face of 
gayety, there would have been no such man ! 

On one of those ugly nights, which we have faintly 
hinted at, but forborne to picture forth, the ministei 
started from his chair. A new thought had struck him. 
There might be a moment’s peace in it. Attiring him- 
self with as much care as if it had been for public wor- 
ship, and precisely in the same manner, he stole softly 
down the staircase, undid the door, a nd issued forth. 


’70 


THE SCAT! LET LETTER 


XII. 

THE MINISTER’S VIGIL. 

Wai iing in the shadow of a dream, as it were, and 
perhaps actually under the influence of a species of som« 
nambulism, Mr. Dimmesdale reached the spot, where, 
new so mng since, Hester Prynne had lived through, her 
first hours of public ignominy. The same platform 01 
scaffold, black and weather-stained with the storm or 
sunshine of seven long years, and foot-worn, too, with 
the tread of many culprits who had since ascended it, 
remained standing beneath the balcony of the meeting- 
house. The minister went up the steps. 

It was an obscure night of early May. An unvaried 
pall of cloud muffled the whole expanse of sky from 
zenith to horizon. If the same multitude which had 
stood as eye-witnesses while Hester Prynne sustained 
her punishment could now have been summoned forth, 
they would have discerned no face above the platform, 
nor hardly the outline of a human shape, in the dark 
gray of the midnight. But the town was all asleep. 
There was no peril of discovery. The minister might 
stand there, if it so pleased him, until mtming should 
redden in the east, without other risk than that the dank 
and chill night-air would creep into his frame, and stiffen 
his joints with rheumatism, and clog his throat with 
catarrh and cough; thereby defrauding the expectant 
audience of to-morrow’s prayer and sermon. No eye 
could see him, save that ever-wakeful one which had 


mt minister’s vigil. 


i7I 


see/* hn/L in his closet, wielding the bloody scourge. 
Wh} , then, had he come hither ? Was it but the mock- 
ery of penitence ? A mockery, indeed, but in which his 
soul trifled with itself! A mockery at which angels 
blushed and wept, while fiends rejoiced, with jeering 
laughter ! He had been driven hither by the impulse of 
that Remorse which dogged him everywhere, and whose 
own sister and closely linked companion was that Cow- 
ardice which invariably drew him back, with her tremu- 
lous gripe, just when the other impulse had hurried him 
to the verge of a disclosure. Poor, miserable man ! what 
right had infirmity like his to burden itself with crime ? 
Crime is for the iron-nerved, who have their choice either 
to endure it, or, if it press too hard, to exert their fierce 
and savage strength for a good purpose, and fling it off 
at once ! This feeble and most sensitive of spirits could 
do neither, yet continually did one thing or another, 
which intertwined, in the same inextricable knot, the 
agony of heaven-defying guilt and vain repentance. 

And thus, while standing on the scaffold, in this vain 
show of expiation, Mr. Dimmesdale was overcome with 
a great horror of mind, as if the universe were gazing at 
a scarlet token on his naked breast, right over his heart. 
On that spot, in very truth, there was, and there had 
long been, the gnawing and poisonous tooth of bodily 
pain. Without any effort of his will, or power to restrain 
himself, he shrieked aloud ; an outcry that went pealing 
through the night, and was beaten back from one house 
to another, and reverberated from the hills in the back- 
ground ; as if a company of devils, detecting so much 
misery and terror in it, had made a plaything of the 
sound, and were bandying it to and fro. 


172 


TIIE SCARLET LETTER. 


“ It is done !” muttered the minister, covering his face 
with his hands. “ The whole, town will awake, and 
hurry forth, and find me here ! ” 

But it was not so. The shriek had perhaps sounded 
with a far greater power, to his own startled ears, than it 
actually possessed. The town did not awake ; or, it it 
did, the drowsy slumberers mistook the cry either for 
something frightful in a dream, or for the noise of witch 
es ; whose voices, at that period, were often heard to pass 
over the settlements or lonely cottages, as they rode with 
Satan through the air. The clergyman, therefore, hear- 
ing no symptoms of disturbance, uncovered his eyes and 
looked about him. At one of the chamber- windows of 
Governor Bellingham’s mansion, which stood at some 
distance, on the line of another street, he beheld the ap- 
pearance of the old magistratf himself, with a lamp in 
his hand, a white night-cap or his head, and a long white 
gown enveloping his figure. He looked like a ghost, 
evoked unseasonably from the grave. The cry had evi 
dently startled him. At another window of the same 
house, moreover, appeared old Mistress Hibbins, the Gov- 
ernor’s sister, also with a lamp, which, even thus far off, 
revealed the expression of her sour and discontented face. 
She thrust forth her head from the lattice, and looked 
anxiously upward. Beyond the shadow of a doubt, this 
venerable witch-lady had heard Mr. Dimmesdale’s out 
cry, and interpreted it, with its multitudinous echoes and 
reverberations, as the clamor of the fiends and night-hags, 
with whom she was well known to make excursions into 
the forest. 

Detecting the gleam of Governor Bellingham’s lamp 
the old lady quickly extinguished her own, and ranished 


THE MINISTER’S VIGIL. 


173 


Possibly, she went up among the clouds. The niinistei 
saw nothing further of her motions. The magistrate 
nfter a wary observation of the darkneiss — into which, 
nevertheless, he could see but little further than he might 
into a mill-stone — retired from the window. 

The minister grew comparatively calm. His eyes, 
however, were soon greeted by a little, glimmering light, 
which, at first a long way off, was approaching up the 
street. It threw a gleam of recognition on here a post, 
and there a garden-fence, and here a latticed window-pane, 
and there a pump, with its full trough of water, and here, 
again, an arched door of oak, with an iron knocker, and 
a rough log for the door-step. The Reverend Mr. Dim- 
mesdale noted all these minute particulars, even while 
firmly convinced that the doom of his existence was steal- 
ing onward, Li the footsteps which he now heard ; and 
that the gleam of the lantern would fall upon him, in a 
few moments more, and reveal his long-hidden secret. 
As the light drew nearer, he beheld, within its illumin- 
ated circle, his brother clergyman, — or, to speak more 
accurately, his professional father, as well as highly val- 
ued friend, — the Reverend Mr. Wilson ; who, as Mr. 
Dimmesdale now conjectured, had been praying at thn 
bedside of some dying man. And so he had. The good 
old minister came freshly from the death-chamber of 
Governor Winthrop, who had passed from earth to heaven 
within that very hour. And now surrounded, like the 
saint-like personages of olden times, with a radiant halo, 
that glorified him amid this gloomy night of sin, — as if 
the departed Governor had left him an inheritance of his 
glory, or as if he had caught upon himself the distant 
dime of the celestial city, while looking thitherward to 


174 


THE SCARLET LETTER. 


see the triumphant pilgrim pass within its gates,- now, 
in short, good Father Wilson was moving homeward, 
aiding his footsteps with a lighted lantern! The glim 
mei of this luminary suggested the above conceits to Mr. 
Dimmesdale, who smiled, — nay, almost laughed at them* 

and then wondered if he were going mad. 

As the Reverend Mr. Wilson passed beside the scaf 
fold, closely muffling his Geneva cloak about him with 
one arm, and h r-Uing the lantern before his breast with 
the other, the minister could hardly restrain himself from 
speaking. 

“A good evening to you, venerable Father Wilson! 
Come up hither, I pray you, and pass a pleasant houi 
with mo ! ” 

Good heavens ! Had Mr. Dimmesdale actually spoken ? 
For one instant, he believed that these words had passed 
his lips. But they were uttered only within his imagin 
ation. The venerable Father Wilson continued to step 
slowly onward, looking carefully at the muddy pathway 
before his feet, and never once turning his head toward? 
the guilty platform. When the light of the glimmering 
lantern had faded quite away, the minister discovered, by 
the faintness-which came over him, that the last few mo 
ments had been a crisis of terrible anxiety ; although hi? 
mind had made an involuntary effort to relieve itself by 
a kind of lurid playfulness. 

Shortly afterwards, the like grisly sense of the humor 
ous again stole in among the solemn phantoms of hi? 
thought. He felt his limbs growing stiff with the unac- 
customed chilliness of the night, and doubted whether he 
should be able to descend the steps of the scaffold 
Morning would break and find him there. The neigh- 


THE minister’s vigh. 


175 


fvorhood would begin to rouse itself. The earliest riser, 
coming forth in the * l im twilight, would perceive a vague* 
ly defined figure a' on the place of shame ; and, half 
crazed be*w ; xt *>V n and curiosity, would go, knocking 
from door to door, summoning all the people to behold 
the ghost — as he needs must think it — of some defunct 
transgressor. A dusky tumult would flap its wings from 
one house to another. Then — the morning light still 
waxing stronger — old patriarchs would rise up in great 
haste, each in his flannel gown, and matronly dames, 
without pausing to put off their night-gear. The whole 
tribe of decorous personages, who had never heretofore 
been seen with a single hair of their heads awry, would 
start into public view, with the disorder of a nightmare 
in their aspects. Old Governor Bellingham would come 
grimly forth, with his King James’ ruff fastened askew ; • 
and Mistress Hibbins, with some twigs of the forest cling- 
ing to her skirts, and looking sourer than ever, as having 
hardly got a wink of sleep after her night ride ; and good 
Father Wilson, too, after spending half the night at a 
death-bed, and liking ill to be disturbed, thus early, out 
of his dreams about the glorified saints. Hither, like- 
wise, would come the elders and deacons of Mr. Dimmes- 
dale’s church, and the young r irgins who so idolized their 
minister, and had made a shrine for him in their white 
bosoms ; which now, by the by, in their hurry and con- 
fusion, they would scantly have given themselves time 
to cover with their kerchiefs. All people, in a word, 
would come stumbling over their thresholds, and turning 
up their amazed and horror-stricken visages around the 
scaffold. Whom would they discern th^e, with the red 
eastern light upon his brow ? Whom, but the Baverend 


176 


THE SCARLET LETTER. 


Arthur Dimmesdale, half frozen to death, overwhelmed 
with shame, and standing where Hester Prynne had 
stood ! 

Carried away by the grotesque horror of this picture, 
the minister, unawares, and to his own infinite alarm, 
burst into a great peal of laughter. It was immediately 
responded to by a light, airy, childish laugh, in which 
with a thrill of the heart, — but he knew not whether of 
exquisite pain, or pleasure as acute, — he recognized the 
tones of little Pearl. 

“ Pearl ! Little Pearl ! ” cried he, after a moment’s 
pause ; then, suppressing his voice, — “ Hester ! Hester 
Prynne ! Are you there ? ” 

“ Yes ; it is Hester Prynne ! ” she replied, in a tone of 
surprise ; and the minister heard her footsteps approach- 
ing from the sidewalk, along which she had been passing. 
“ It is I, and my little Pearl.” 

“Whence come you, Hester?” asked the minister 
“ What sent you hither ?” 

“ I have been watching at a death-bed,” answered Hes- 
ter Prynne ; — “at Governor Winthrop’s death-bed, and 
have taken his measure for a robe, and am now going 
homeward to my dwelling.” 

“ Come up hither, Hester, thou and little Pearl,” said 
the Reverend Mr. Dimmesdale. “Ye have both been 
here before, but I was not with you. Come up hither 
once again, and we will stand all three together ! ” 

She silently ascended the steps, and stood on the plat- 
form, holding little Pearl by the hand. The minister felt 
for the child’s other hand, and took it. The moment 
that he did so, there came what seemed a tumultuous 
rush of new life, other life than his own, pouring like n 


TIIE MINISTER’S VIGIL. 


in 

lorrent into his heart, and hurrying through all his 
veins, as if the mother and the child were communi- 
cating their vital warmth to his half-torpid system. The 
three formed an electric chain. 

“Minister!” whispered little Pearl. 

“ What wouldst thou say, child ? ” asked Mr. Dira* 
mesdale. 

“ Wilt thou stand here with mother and me, to-mor- 
row noontide ? ” inquired Pearl. 

“ Nay ; not so, my little Pearl,” answered the minis- 
ter ; for, with the new energy of the moment, all the 
dread of public exposure, that had so long been the 
anguish of his life, had returned upon him ; and he was 
already trembling at the conjunction in which — with a 
strange joy, nevertheless — he now found himself. “ Not 
so, my child. I shall, indeed, stand with thy mother 
and thee one other day, but not to-morrow.” 

Pearl laughed, and attempted to pull away her hand. 
But the minister held it fast. 

“ A moment longer, my child ! ” said he. 

“ But wilt thou promise,” asked Pearl, “ to take my 
hand, and mother’s hand, to-morrow noontide ? ” 

“ Not then, Pearl,” said the minister, “ but another 
time.” 

“ And what other time ? ” persisted the child, 

“ At the great judgment day,” whispered the minis- 
ter, — and, strangely enough, the sense that he was a 
professional teacher of the truth impelled him to answer 
the child so. “ Then, and there, before the judgment- 
seat, thy mother, and thou, and I, must stand together, 
But the daylight of this world shall not see our meet 
ing'” 


12 


178 


THE SCARLET LETTER. 


Pear laughed again. 

But, before Mr. Dimmesdale had done speaking, f, 
light gleamed far and wide over all the muffled sky. It 
was doubtless caused by one of those meteors, which 
(he night-watcher may so often observe burning out to 
waste, in the vacant regions of the atmosphere. So 
powerful was its radiance, that it thoroughly illuminated 
the dense medium of cloud betwixt the sky and earth. 
The great vault brightened, like the dome of an im- 
mense lamp. It showed the familiar scene of the 
street, with the distinctness of mid-day, but also with 
the awfulness that is always imparted to familiar objects 
by an unaccustomed light. The wooden houses, with 
their jutting stories and quaint gable-peaks ; the door- 
steps and thresholds, with the early grass springing up 
about them ; the garden-plots, black with freshly turned 
earth ; the wheel-track, little worn, and, even in the 
market-place, margined with green on either side ; — 
all were visible, but with a singularity of aspect that 
seemed to give another moral interpretation to the things 
of this world than they had ever borne before. And there 
stood the minister, with his handover his heart; and 
Hester Prynne, with the embroidered letter glimmering 
on her bosom ; and little Pearl, herself a symbol, and 
the connecting link between those two. They stood in 
the noon of that strange and solemn splendor, as if it 
were the light that is to reveal all secrets, and the day 
oreak that shall unite all who belong to one another. 

There was witchcraft in little Pearl’s eyes , and her 
iace, as she glanced upward at the minister, wore that 
naughty smile which made its expression frequently so 
ekvsh. She withdrew her hand from Ml Dimmesdale’s 


JHE MINISTER’S VIGIL. 


179 


and pointed acioss the street. But he clasped both his 
hands over his breast, and cast his eyes towards the 
zenith. 

Nothing was more common, in those days, than to 
interpret all meteoric appearances, and other natural 
phenomena, that occurred with less regularity than the 
rise and set of sun and moon, as so many revelations 
from a supernatural source. Thus, a blazing spear, a 
sword of flame, a bow, or a sheaf of arrows, seen in the 
midnight sky, prefigured Indian warfare. Pestilence 
was known to have been foreboded by a shower of 
crimson light. We doubt whether any marked event, 
for good or evil, ever befell New England, from its set- 
tlement down to Revolutionary times, of which the in- 
habitants had not been previously warned by some spec- 
tacle of this nature. Not seldom, it had been seen by 
multitudes. Oftener, however, its credibility rested on 
the faith of some lonely eye-witness, who beheld the 
wonder through the colored, magnifying, and distorting 
medium of his imagination, and shaped it more distinctly 
in his after-thought. It was, indeed, a majestic idea, 
that the destiny of nations should be revealed, in these 
awful hieroglyphics, on the cope of heaven. A scroll so 
wide might not be deemed too expansive for Provi- 
dence to write a people’s doom upon. The belief was a 
favorite one with our forefathers, as betokening that 
their infant commonwealth was under a celestial guar- 
dianship of peculiar intimacy and strictness. But what 
shall we say. when an individual discovers a revelation 
addressed to himself alone, on the same vast sheet of 
leccrd ! In such a case, it could only be the symptom 
of a highly disordered mental state, when a man, ren 


180 


THE SCARLET LETTER. 


dered morbidly self-contemplative by long, intense, ana 
secret pain, had extended his egotism over the whole 
expanse of nature, until the firmament itself should ajj- 
pear no more than a fitting page for his soul’s history and 
fate ! 

We impute it, therefore, solely to the disease in hia 
own eye and heart, that the minister, looking upward 
to the zenith, beheld there the appearance of an im- 
mense letter, — the letter A, — marked out in lines of 
dull red light. Not but the meteor may have shown 
itself at that point, burning duskily through a veil of 
cloud ; but with no such shape as his guilty imagina- 
tion gave it ; or, at least, with so little definiteness, that 
another’s guilt might have seen another symbol in it. 

There was a singular circumstance that characterized 
Mr. Dimmesdale’s psychological state, at this moment. 
All the time that he gazed upward to the zenith, he 
was, nevertheless, perfectly aware that little Pearl was 
pointing her finger towards old Roger Chillingvvorth, 
who stood at no great distance, from the scaffold. The 
minister appeared to see him, with the same glance that 
discerned the miraculous letter. To his features, as to 
all other objects, the meteoric light imparted a new ex- 
pression ; or it might well be that the physician was not 
careful then, as at all other times, to hide the malevolence 
with which he looked upon his victim. Certainly, if the 
meteor kindled up the sky, and disclosed the earth, with 
an awfulness that admonished Hester Prynne and the 
clergyman of the day of judgment, then might Roger 
Chillingworth have passed with them for the arch-fiend, 
standing there with a smile and scowl, to claim his own. 
3o vivid was the express io i, or so intense the minister’s 


THE MINISTER’S VIGIL. 


181 


perception of it, that it seemed still to remain painted on 
the darkness, after the meteor had vanished, with an 
effect as if the street and all things else were at once 
annihilated. 

“ Who is that man, Hester ? ” gasped Mr. Dimmes- 
dale, overcome with terror. “ 1 shiver at him ! Dost 
thou know the man ? I hate him, Hester ! ” 

She remembered her oath, and was silent. 

“ I tell thee, my soul shivers at him ! ” muttered the 
minister again. “ Who is he ? Who is he ? Canst 
thou do nothing for me ? I have a nameless horror of 
the man !” 

“ Minister,’’ said little Pearl, “ I can tell thee who he 
is ! ” 

“ Quickly, then, child ! ” said the minister, bending 
his ear close to her lips. “ Quickly ! — and as low as 
thou canst whisper.” 

Pearl mumbled something into his ear, that sounded, 
indeed, like human language, but was only such gibber- 
ish as children may be heard amusing themselves with, 
by the hour together. At all events, if it involved any 
secret information in regard to old Roger Chillingworth, 
it was in a tongue unknown to the erudite clergyman, 
and did but increase the bewilderment of his mind. 
The elvish child then laughed aloud. 

“ Dost thou mock me now ? ” said the minister. 

“ Thou wast not bold ! — thou wast not true ! 99 — 
answered the child. “Thou wouldst not promise to 
take my hand, and mother’s hand, to-morrow noon- 
tide ! ” 

“ Worthy Sir,” answered the physician, who had now 
advanced to the foot of the platfcnn. “ Tious Mastei 


THE SCARLET LETTER. 


182 


Dimmesdale . can this be you ? Well, well, indeed ! 
We men of study, whose heads are in our books, have 
need to be straitly looked after! We dream in out 
waking moments, and walk in our sleep. Come, good 
Sir, and my dear friend, I pray you, let me lead you 
vome ! ” 

“ How knewest thou that I was here ? ” asked the 
minister, fearfully. 

“ Verily, and in good faith,” answered Roger Chii- 
lingworth, “ I knew nothing of the matter. I had spent 
the better part of the night at the bedside of the wor- 
shipful Governor Winthrop, doing what my poor skill 
might to give him ease. He going home to a better 
world, I, likewise, was on my way homeward, when this 
strange light shone out. Come with me, I beseech you, 
Reverend Sir ; else you will be poorly able to do Sab- 
bath duty to-morrow. Aha ! see now, how they trouble 
the brain, — these books ! — these books ! You should 
study less, good Sir, and take a little pastime ; or these 
night-whimseys will grow upon you.” 

“ I will go home with you,” said Mr. Dimmesdale. 

With a chill despondency, like one awaking, all nerve- 
less, from an ugly dream, he yielded himself to the phy- 
sician, and was led away. 

The next day, however, being the Sabbath, he preached 
a discourse which was held to be the richest and most 
powerful, and the most replete with heavenly intiuences, 
that had ever proceeded from his lips. Souls, it is said 
more souls than one, were brought to the truth by the 
efficacy of that sermon, and vowed within themselves to 
cherish a holy gratitude towards Mr. Dimmesdale through' 
out the long hereafter. But, as he came down the pu] 


THE MINIS! KITS VIGIL. 


183 


pit steps, the gray-bearded sexton met him, holding up a 
black glove, which the minister recognized as his own 
“ It was found,” said the sexton, “ this morning, on 
the scaffold where evil-doers are set up to public shame. 
Satan dropped it there, I take it, intending a scurrilous 
jest against your reverence. But, indeed, he was blind 
and foolish, as he ever and always is. A pure hand 
needs no glove to cover it ! ” 

“Thank you, my good friend,” said the minister, 
gravely, but startled at heart ; for, so confused was his 
remembrance, that he had almost brought himself to 
Jook at the events of the past night as visionary. “ Yes. 
it seems to be my glove, indeed ! ” 

“ And, since Satan saw fit to steal it, your reverence 
must needs handle him without gloves, henceforward,” 
remarked the old sexton, grimly smiling. “ But did 
your reverence hear of the portent that was seen last 
night? — a great red letter in the sky, — the letter A, 
which we interpret to stand for Angel. For, as our 
good Governor Winthrop was made an ange 1 this past 
night, it was doubtless held fit that there should be 
seine notice thereof! ” 

u No,” answered the minister, “1 had not heard 
of it” 


184 


THE SCARLET LETT UR. 


XIII, 

ANOTHER VIEW OF HESTER. 

Ik her late singular interview with Mr. Dimmesdalc, 
Hester Prynne was shocked at the condition to which 
she found the clergyman reduced. His nerve seemed 
absolutely destroyed. His moral force was abased into 
more than childish weakness. It grovelled helpless on 
the ground, even while his intellectual faculties re- 
tained their pristine strength, or had perhaps acquired 
a morbid energy, which disease only could have given 
them. With her knowledge of a train of circumstances 
hidden from all others, she could readily infer that 
besides the legitimate action of his own conscience 
a terrible machinery had been brought to bear, and was 
still operating, on Mr. Dimmesdale’s well-being and 
repose. Knowing what this poor, fallen man had once 
been, her whole soul was moved by the shuddering ter- 
ror with which he had appealed to her, — the outcast 
woman, — for support against his instinctively discov- 
ered enemy. She decided, moreover, that he had a 
right to her utmost aid. Little accustomed, in her long 
seclusion from society, to measure her ideas of right 
and wrong by any standard external to herself, Hester 
saw — or seemed to see — that there lay a responsibility 
upon her, in reference to the clergyman, which she owed 
to no other, nor to the whole world besides. Tire links 
that united her to the rest of human kind — links of 
flowers, or silk, or gold, or whatever the material-— had 


another MEW of HESTER. 


!' 


m 


all been broken. Here was the iron link of mutual 
crime, which neither he nor she could break. Like all 
other ties, it brought along -with it its obligations. 

Hester Prynne did not now occupy precisely the 
same position in which we beheld her during the earlier 
periods of her ignominy. Years had come and gone. 
Pearl was now seven years old. Her mother, with the 
scarlet letter on her breast, glittering in its fantastic 
embroidery, had long been a familiar object to the 
townspeople As is apt to be the case when a person 
stands out in any prominence before the community, 
and, at the same time, interferes neither with public nor 
individual interests and convenience, a species of gen- 
eral regard had ultimately grown up in reference to 
Hester Prynne. It is to the credit of human nature, 
that, except where its selfishness is brought into play, 
it loves more readily than it hates. Hatred, by a grad- 
ual and quiet process, will even be transformed to love, 
unless the change be impeded by a continually new 
irritation of the original feeling of hostility. In this 
matter of Hester Prynne, there was neither irritation 
nor irksomeness. She never battled with the public, 
hut submitted, uncomplainingly, to its worst usage ; she 
made no claim upon it, in requital for wdiat she suf- 
fered ; she did not weigh upon its sympathies. Then, 
also, the blameless purity of her life during all these 
years in which she had been set apart to infamy, was 
reckoned largely in her favor. With nothing now to 
lose, in the sight of mankind, and with no hope, and 
seemingly no wish, of gaining anything, it could only 
be a genuine regard for virtue that had brought back 
the poor wanderer to its paths. 


Ib6 THE SCARLET LETTER. 

It was perceived, too, that while Hester never put 
forward even the humblest title to share in the world’s 
privileges, — further than to breathe the common air, 
and earn daily bread for little Pearl and herself b) the 
hithful labor of her hands, — she was quick to acknowl- 
edge her sisterhood with the race of man, whenever 
benefits were to be conferred. None so ready as she to 
give of her little substance to every demand of poverty; 
even though the bitter-hearted pauper threw back a gibe 
in requital of the food brought regularly to his door, or 
the garments wrought for him by the fingers that could 
have embroidered a monarch’s robe. None so self- 
devoted as Hester, when pestilence stalked through the 
town. In all seasons of calamity, indeed, whether 
general or of individuals, the outcast of society at once 
found her place. She came, not as a guest, but as a 
rightful inmate, into the household that was darkened 
by trouble ; as if its gloomy twilight were a medium in 
which she was entitled to hold intercourse with her 
fellow-creatures. There glimmered the embroidered 
letter, with comfort in its unearthly ray. Elsewhere 
the token of sin, it was the taper of the sick-chamber. 
It had even thrown its gleam, in the sufferer’s hard ex- 
tremity, across the verge of time. It had shown him 
where to set his foot, while the light of earth was fast 
becoming lim, and ere the light of futurity could reach 
him. In such emergencies, Hester’s nature showed 
itself warm and rich; a well-spring of human tender- 
ness, unfailing to every real demand, and inexhaustible 
by the largest. Her breast, with its Dadge of shame, 
was but the softer pillow for the head that needed one, 
She was self-ordained a Sister of Mercy ; or, we maj 


ANOTHER VIEW OF HESTER. 


187 


rather say, the world’s heavy hand hail so ordained her, 
when neither the world nor she looked forward to this 
result. The letter was the symbol of her calling. Such 
helpfulness was found in her, — so much power to do, 
and power to sympathize, — that many people refused 
to interpret the scarlet A by its original signification. 
They said that it meant Able; so strong was Hester 
Prynne, with a woman’s strength. 

It was only the darkened house that could contain 
her. When sunshine came again, she was not there. 
Her shadow had faded across the threshold. The help- 
ful inmate had departed, without one backward glance 
to gather up the meed of gratitude, if any were in the 
hearts of those whom she had served so zealously. 
Meeting them in the street, she never raised her head 
to receive their greeting. If they were resolute to 
accost her, she laid her finger on the scarlet letter, and 
passed on. This might be pride, but was so like hu- 
mility, that it produced all the softening influence of 
the latter quality on the public mind. The public is 
despotic in its temper; it is capable of denying com- 
mon justice, when too strenuously demanded as a right; 
but quite as frequently it awards more than justice, 
when the appeal is made, as despots love to have it 
made, entirely to its generosity. Interpreting Hestei 
Prynne’s deportment as an appeal of this nature, society 
was inclined to show its former victim a more benign 
countenance than she cared to be favored with, or, per- 
chance, than she deserved. 

The rulers, and the wise and learned men of the 
community, were longer in acknowledging the influ- 
ence of Hester’s good qualities than the people. The 


188 


TIIE SCARLET LETTER. 


prejudices which they shared in common with the lattei 
were fortified in themselves by an iron framework of 
reasoning, that made it a far tougher labor to expel 
them. Day by day, nevertheless, their sour and rigid 
wrinkles were relaxing into something which, in the 
due course of years, might grow to be an expression of 
almost benevolence. Thus it was with the men of 
rank, on whom their eminent position imposed the 
guardianship of the public morals. Individuals in prh 
vate life, meanwhile, had quite forgiven Hester Prynne 
for her frailty ; nay, more, they had begun to look upon 
the scarlet letter as the token, not of that one sin, for 
which she had borne so long and dreary a penance, 
but of her many good deeds since. “ Do you see that 
woman with the embroidered badge ? ” they would say 
to strangers. “ It is our Hester, — the town’s own 
Hester, — who is so kind to the poor, so helpful to the 
sick, so comfortable to the afflicted ! ” Then, it is true, 
the propensity of human nature to tell the very worst 
of itself, when embodied in the person of another, would 
constrain them to whisper the black scandal of bygone 
years. It was none the less a fact, however, that, in 
the eyes of the very men who spoke thus, the scarlet 
letter had the effect of the cross on a nun’s bosom. It 
imparted to the wearer a kind of sacredness, which 
enabled her to walk securely amid all peril. Had she 
fallen among thieves, it would have kept her safe. It 
was reported, and believed by many, that an Indian had 
drawn his arrow against the badge, and that the missile 
struck it, but fell harmless to the ground. 

The effect of the symbol — or, rather, of the position 
in respect to society that was indicated by it — on the 


ANOTHER VIEW OF HESTER. 


1S9 


mind i>f Hester Prynne herself, was powerful and pecu* 
liar. All the light and graceful foliage of her charactei 
had been withered up by tlrs red-hot brand, and had 
iong ago fallen away, leaving a bare and harsh outline, 
which might have been repulsive, had she possessed 
friendo or companions to be repelled by it. Even the 
attractiveness of her person had undergone a similar 
change. It might be partly owing to the studied aus- 
terity of her dress, and partly to the lack of demonstra- 
tion in her manners. It was a sad transformation, too, 
that her rich and luxuriant hair had either been cut ofF, 
or was so completely hidden by a cap, that not a shining 
lock of it ever once gushed into the sunshine. It was 
due in part to all these causes, but still more to some- 
thing else, that there seemed to be no longer anything 
in Hester’s face for Love to dwell upon; nothing in 
Hester’s form, though majestic and statue-like, that Pas- 
sion would ever dream of clasping in its embrace ; noth- 
ing in Hester’s bosom, to make it ever again the pillow 
of Affection. Some attribute had departed from her, the 
permanence of which had been essential to keep her a 
woman. Such is frequently the fate, and such the stern 
development, of the feminine character and person, when 
the woman has encountered, and lived through, an ex- 
perience of peculiar severity. If she be all tenderness, 
she will die. If she survive, the tenderness will e T thei 
be crushed out of her, or — and the outward semblance 
is the same — crushed so deeply into her heart that 
it can never show itself more. The latter is perhaps 
the truest theory. She who has once been, woman, 
and ceased to be so, might at any moment become a 
woman again, if there were only the magic touch to 


190 


THE SCARLET LETTER. 


effect the transfiguration. We shall see whether Ifestei 
Prynne were ever afterwards so touched, and so trans 
figured. 

Much of the marble coldness of Hester’s impression 
was to be attributed to the circumstance, that her life 
had turned, in a great measure, from passion and feeling, 
to thought. Standing alone in the world, — alone, as to 
any dependence on society, and with little Pearl to be 
guided and protected, — alone, and hopeless of retrieving 
her position, even had she not scorned to consider it 
desirable, — she cast away the fragments of a broken 
chain. The world’s law was no law for her mind. It 
was an age in which the human intellect, newly eman- 
cipated, had taken a more active and a wider range than 
for many centuries before. Men of the sword had over- 
thrown nobles and kings. Men bolder than these had 
overthrown and rearranged — not actually, but within 
the sphere of theory, which was their most real abode — 
the whole system of ancient prejudice, wherewith was 
linked much of ancient principle. Hester Prynne im- 
bibed this spirit. She assumed a freedom of speculation, 
then common enough on the other side of the Atlantic, 
but which our forefathers, had they known it, would have 
held to be a deadlier crime than that stigmatized by the 
scarlet letter. In her lonesome cottage, by the sea-shore, 
thoughts visited her, such as dared to enter no other 
dwelling in New England ; shadowy guests, that would 
have been as perilous as demons to their entertainer, 
could they have been seen so much af knocking at her 
door. 

It is remarkable, that persons who speculate the most 
boldly often conform with the most perfect quietude to 


ANOTHER VIEW OF HESTER. 


191 


the external regulations of society. The thought suffices 
them, without investing itself in the flesh and blood of 
action. So it seemed to be with Hester. Yet, had little 
Pearl never come to her from the spiritual world, it might 
have been far otherwise. Then, she might have come 
down to us in history, hand in hand with Ann Hutchin- 
son, as the foundress of a religious sect. She might, 
in one of her phases, have been a prophetess. She 
might, and not improbably would, have suffered death, 
from the stem tribunals of the period, for attempting to 
undermine the foundations of the Puritan establishment. 
But, in the education of her child, the mother’s enthusi- 
asm of thought had something to wreak itself upon. 
Providence, in the person of this little girl, had assigned 
to Hester’s charge the germ and blossom of womanhood, 
to be cherished and developed amid a host of difficulties. 
Everything was against her. The world was hostile. 
The child’s own nature had something wrong in it, 
which continually betokened that she had been bom 
amiss, — the effluence of her mother’s lawless passion, 
— and often impelled Hester to ask, in bitterness of 
heart, whether it were for ill or good that the poor little 
creature had been bom at all. 

Indeed, the same dark question often rose into her 
mind, with reference to the whole race of womanhood. 
Was existence worth accepting, even to the happiest 
among them ? As concerned her own individual exist- 
ence, she had long ago decided in the negative, and dis- 
missed the point as settled. A tendency to speculation, 
though it may keep woman quiet, as it does man, yet 
makes her sad She discerns, it may be, such a hope- 
ess task before her. As a first step, the whole system 


>92 


THE SCARLET LETTER. 


of society is to be t irn down, and built up anew. Then, 
the very nature of the opposite sex, ov its long hereditary 
habit, which has become like nature, is to be- essentially 
modified, before woman can be allowed to assume what 
seems a fair and suitable position. Finally, all other 
difficulties being obviated, woman cannot take advantage 
of these preliminary reforms, until she herself shall have 
undergone a still mightier change ; in which, perhaps 
the ethereal essence, wherein she has her truest life, will 
be found to have evaporated. A woman never overcomes 
these problems by any exercise of thought. They are 
not to be solved, or only in one way. If her heart chance 
to come uppermost, they vanish. Thus, Hester Prynne, 
whose heart had lost its regular and healthy throb, wan- 
dered without a clew in the dark labyrinth of mind; now 
turned aside by an insurmountable precipice ; now start- 
ing back from a deep chasm. There was wild and 
ghastly scenery all around her, and a home comfort 
nowhere. At times, a fearful doubt strove to possess her 
soul, whether it were not better to send Pearl at once to 
heaven, and go herself to such futurity as Eternal Jus- 
tice should provide. 

The scarlet letter had not done its office. 

Now, however, her interview with the Reverend Mr. 
Dimmesdale, on the night of his vigil, had given her a 
new theme of reflection, and held up to her an object 
that appeared worthy of any exertion and sacrifice for its 
attainment. She had witnessed the intense misery be- 
neath which the minister struggled, or, to speak more 
accurately, had ceased to struggle. She saw that he 
stood on the verge of lunacy, if he had not already 
stepped across it. It was impossible to doubt, that, what- 


ANOTHER VIEW OF HESTER. 


19a 


ever painful efficacy there might be in the secret sting 
of remorse, a deadlier venom had been infused into it by 
the hand that proffered relief. A secret enemy had been 
continually by his side, under the semblance of a friend 
and helper, and had availed himself of the opportunities 
thus afforded for tampering with the delicate springs of 
Mr. Dimmesdale’s nature. Hester could not but ask 
herself, whether there had not originally been a defect 
of truth, courage and loyalty, on her own part, in allow - 
ing the minister to be thrown into a position where so 
much evil was to be foreboded, and nothing auspicious to 
be hoped. Her only justification lay in the fact, that she 
had been able to discern no method of rescuing him from 
a blacker ruin than had overwhelmed herself, except by 
acquiescing in .Roger Chillingworth’s scheme of disguise. 
Under that impulse, she had made her choice, and had 
chosen, as it now appeared, the more wretched alterna- 
tive of the two. She determined to redeem her error, 
so far as it might yet be possible. Strengthened by years 
of hard and solemn trial, she felt herself no longer so 
inadequate to cope with Roger Chillingworth as on that 
night, abased by sin, and half maddened by the igno- 
miny that was still new, when they had talked together 
in the prison-chamber. She had climbed her way, 
since then, to a higher point. The old man, on the 
other hand, had brought himself nearer to her level, or 
perhaps below it, by the revenge which he had stooped, 
for. 

In fine, Hester Prynne resolved to meet her former 
husband, and do what might be in her power for the 
rescue of the victim on whom he had so evidently set 
his gripe. Tin occasion was not long to seek, toxie 
13 


194 


HIE SCARLET LETTER. 


afternoon, walking with Pearl in a retired part of the 
peninsula, she beheld the old physician, with a basket 
on one arm, and a staff in the other hand, stooping along 
the ground, in quest of roots and herbs to concoct hia 
medicines withal. 


HESTER AND THE PHYSICIAN. 


HIS 


XIV. 

HESTER AND THE PHYSICIAN. 

Hester bade little Pearl run down to the margin of 
the water, and play with the shells and tangled sea- 
weed, until she should hare talked awhile with yonder 
gatherer of herbs. So the child flew away like a 
bird, and, making bare her small white feet, went pat- 
tering along the moist margin of the sea. Here and 
there she came to a full stop, and peeped curiously 
into a pool, left by the retiring tide as a mirror for 
Pearl to see her face in. Forth peeped at her, out 
of the pool, with dark, glistening curls around hei 
Head, and an elf-smile in her eyes, the image of a 
little maid, whom Pearl, having no other playmate, 
invited to take her hand, and run a race with her. 
But the visionary little maid, on her part, beckoned 
likewise, as if to say, — “This is a better place! 
Come thou into the pool!” And Pearl, stepping in, 
mid-leg deep, beheld her own white feet at the bottom ; 
while, out of a still lower depth, came the gleam of a 
kind of fragmentary smile, floating to and fro in the 
agitated water. 

Meanwhile, her mother had accosted the physician. 

“I would speak a word with you,” said she, — “a 
word that concerns us much.” 

“Alia! ana is it Mistress Hester that has a word 
Cor old Roger Chillingworth?” answered he, raising 
himself from his stooping posture. “With all my 


<96 THE SCARLET LETTER. 

heart ! Why, Mistress, I hear good tidings of yon 
on all hands ! No longer ago than yester-eve, a magis- 
trate, a wise and godly man, was discoursing of your 
affairs, Mistress Hester, and whispered me that there 
had been question concerning you in the council 
It wus debated whether or no, with safety to the com- 
mon weal, yonder scarlet letter might be taken off youi 
bosom. On my life, Hester, I made my entreaty to the 
worshipful magistrate that it might be done forth- 
with ! ” 

“ It lies not in the pleasure of the magistrates to take 
off this badge,” calmly replied Hester. “Were I 
worthy to be quit of it, it would fall away of its own 
nature, or be transformed into something that should 
speak a different purport.” 

“ Nay, then, wear it, if it suit you better,” rejoined 
he. “A woman must needs follow her own fancy, 
touching the adornment of her person. The letter is 
gayly embroidered, and shows right bravely on your 
bosom ! ” 

All this while, Hester had been looking steadily at 
the old man, and was shocked, as well as wonder- 
smitten, to discern what a change had been wrought 
upon him within the past seven years. It was not so 
much that he had grown older ; for though the traces of 
advancing life were visible, he bore his age well, and 
seemed to retain a wiry vigor and alertness. But the 
former aspect of an intellectual and studious man. calm 
and quiet, which was what she best remembered in 
him, had altogether vanished, and been succeeded 
by an eager, searching, almost fierce, yet carefully 
guarded look. It seemed tc be his wish and purpose ia 


HESTER AND THE PHYSIC LIN. 


197 


mask this expression with a smile ; but the latter 
played him false, and flickered over his visage so 
derisively, that the spectator could see his blackness 
all the better for it. Ever and anon, too, there came 
a glare of red light out of his eyes; as if the old 
man’s soul were on fire, and kept on smouldering 
uuskily within his breast, until, by some casual puff 
of passion, it was blown into a momentary flame. This 
he repressed, as speedily as possible, and strove to look 
as if nothing of the kind had happened. 

In a word, old Roger Chillingworth was a striking 
evidence of man’s faculty of transforming himself into 
a devil, if he will only, for a reasonable space of 
time, undertake a devil’s office. This unhappy person 
had effected such a transformation, by devoting himself, 
for seven years, to the constant analysis of a heart full 
of torture, and deriving his enjoyment thence, and 
adding fuel to those fiery tortures which he analyzed 
and gloated over. 

The scarlet letter burned on Hester Prynne’s bosom. 
Here was another ruin, the responsibility of which came 
partly home to her. 

“ What see you in my face,” asked the physician, 
“ that you look at it so earnestly ? ” 

“ Something that would make me weep, if there were 
any tears bitter enough for it,” answered she. “But 
let it pass ! It is of yonder miserable man that I won 1 1 
speak.” 

“And what of him?” cried Roger Chillingworth, 
eagerly, as if he bved the topic, and were glad of an 
opportunity to discuss it with the only person of whom 
he could make a confidant. “ Not to h'de the tn**h, 


198 


TR.fi SCARLET LETTER. 


Mistress Hester, my thoughts happen just now to t* 
busy with the gentleman. So speak freely ; and I wil’ 
make answer.” 

“ When we last spake together,” said Hester, “ now 
seven years ago, it was your pleasure to extort a 
promise of secrecy, as touching the former relation 
betwixt yourself and me. As the life and good fame 
of yonder man were in your hands, there seemed no 
choice to me, save to be silent, in accordance with 
your behest. Yet it was not without heavy misgiv- 
ings that I thus bound myself; for, having cast off 
all duty towards other human beings, there remained a 
duty towards him; and something whispered me that 
I was betraying it, in pledging myself to keep your 
counsel. Since that day, no man is so near to him 
as you. You tread behind his every footstep. You 
are beside him, sleeping and waking. You search 
his thoughts. You burrow and rankle in his heart ' 
Your clutch is on his life, and you cause him to 
die daily a living death; and still he knows you 
not. In permitting this, I have surely acted a false 
part by the only man to whom the power was left me 
to be true ! ” 

“What choice had you?” asked Roger Chilling- 
worth. “ My finger, pointed at this man, would ha e 
hurled him from his pulpit into a dungeon, — thence, 
perad venture, to the gallows ! ” 

“ It had been better so ! ” said Hester Prynne. 

“What evil have I done the man?” asked Roger 
Ghillingworth again. “I tell thee, Hester Prynne, 
the richest fee that ever physician earned from monarch 
could not have bought such care as I have wasted 


HESTER ANP THE PHYSICIAN. 


199 


on this miserable priest! But for my aid, his life 
would have burned away in torments, within the first 
two years after the perpetration of his crime and 
thine. For, Hester, his spirit lacked the strength that 
could have borne up, as thine has, beneath a burden like 
thy scarlet letter. O, I could reveal a goodly secret ! 
But enough ! What art can do, I have exhausted on 
him. That he now breathes, and creeps about on earth, 
is owing all to me!” 

“ Better he had died at once ! ” said Hester Prynne. 

“Yea, woman, thou sayest truly! ’’cried old Roger 
Chillingworth, letting the lurid fire of his heart blaze 
out before her eyes. “ Better had he died at once \ 
Never did mortal suffer what this man has suffered. 
And all, all, in the sight of his worst enemy ! He 
has been conscious of me. He has felt an influence 
dwelling always upon him like a curse. He knew, 
by some spiritual sense, — for the Creator never made 
another being so sensitive as this, — he knew thai 
no friendly hand was pulling at his heart-strings, and 
that an eye was looking curiously into him, which 
sought only evil, and found it. But he knew not 
that the eye and hand were mine ! With the super- 
stition common to his brotherhood, he fancied himself 
given over to a fiend, to be tortured with frightful 
dreams, and desperate thoughts, the sting of remorse, 
and despair of pardon; as a foretaste of what awaits 
him beyond the grave. But it was the constant shadow 
of my presence ! — the closest propinquity of the man 
whom he had most vilely wronged ! — and who ha* 
grown to exist only by this perpetual poison of the 
direst revenge! Ye a, indeed! — he did not err! — 


200 


THE SCARLET LETTER. 


there was a fiend at his elbow ! A mortal man, with 
once a human heart, has become a fiend for his especial 
torment ! ” 

The unfortunate physician, while uttering these 
words, lifted his hands with a look of horror, as if he 
had beheld some frightful shape, which he could not 
recognize, usurping the place of his own image in a 
glass. It was one of those moments — which sometimes 
occur only at the interval of years — when a man’s 
moral aspect is faithfully revealed to his mind’s eye. 
Not improbably, he had never before viewed himself as 
he did now. 

“Hast thou not tortured him enough?” said Hester, 
noticing the old man’s look. “ Has he not paid thee 
all?” 

“ No ! — no ! — He has but increased the debt ! ” 
answered the physician; and as he proceeded, his 
manner lost its fiercer characteristics, and subsided 
into gloom. “ Dost thou remember me, Hester, as 1 
was nine years agone ? Even then, I was in the 
autumn of my days, nor was it the early autumn. 
But all my life had been made up of earnest, studious, 
thoughtful, quiet years, bestowed faithfully for the in- 
crease of mine own knowledge, and faithfully, too, 
though this latter object was but casual to the other, 
— faithfully for the advancement of human welfare. 
No life had been more peaceful and innocent than 
mine ; few lives so rich with benefits conferred. Dost 
thou remember me? Was I not, though you might 
deem me cold, nevertheless a man thoughtful for 
others, craving little for himself,- — kind, true, just, and 


HESTER AND THE PHYSICIAN. 


201 


of constant, if not warm affections? Was I not all 
this?” 

“ All this, and more,” raid Hester. 

“And what am I now?” demanded he, looking 
into her face, and permitting the whole evil within 
him to be written on his features. “ I have already 
told thee what I am ! A fiend ! Who made me 
so ?” 

“ It was myself ! ” cried Hester, shuddering. “ It was 
l, not less than he. Why hast thou not avenged thyself 
on me ?” 

“ I have left thee to the scarlet letter,” replied Roger 
Chillingworth. “ If that have not avenged me, I can do 
no more ! ” 

He laid his finger on it, with a smile. 

“ It has avenged thee ! ” answered Hester Prynne. 

“ I judged no less,” said the physician. “ And now, 
what wouldst thou with me touching this man?” 

“ I must reveal the secret,” answered Hester, firmly. 
“ He must discern thee in thy true character. Whal 
may be the result, I know not. But this long debt 
of confidence, due from me to him, whose bane and 
ruin .1 have been, shall at length be paid. So far 
us concerns the overthrow or preservation of his fail 
fame and his earthly state, and perchance his life 
he is in thy hands. Nor do I, — whom the scarlet 
letter has disciplined to truth, though it be the truth 
of red-hot iron, entering into the soul, — nor do I per- 
ceive such advantage in his living any longer a lif*. 
of ghastly emptiness, that I shall stoop to implore thy 
mercy. Do with him as thou wilt! There is ro goo^ 
for him, — no good for me, — no good for thee 1 Ther« 


202 


THE SCARLET LETTER. 


is no good for little Pearl ! There is no path to guide 
us out of this dismal maze ! ” 

‘ Woman, I could well-nigh pity thee!” said Roger 
Chillingworth, unable to restrain a thrill of admiration 
too; for there was a quality almost majestic in the 
despair which she expressed. “ Thou hadst great 
elements. Peradventure, hadst thou met earlier with 
a better love than mine, this evil had not been. J i 
pity thee, for the good that has been wasted in thy 
nature ! ” 

“And I thee,” answered Hester Prynne, “for the 
hatred that has transformed a wise and just man to 
a fiend! Wilt thou yet purge it out of thee, and be 
once more human? If not for his sake, then doubly 
for thine own! Forgive, and leave his further retribu- 
tion to the Power that claims it! I said, but now, 
that there could be no good event for him, or thee, 
or me, who are here wandering together in this gloomy 
maze of evil, and stumbling, at every step, over the 
guilt wherewith we have strewn our path. It *s not so! 
There might be good for thee, and thee alone, since 
thou hast been deeply wronged, and hast it at thy will to 
pardon. Wilt thou give up that oply privilege ? Wilt 
thou reject that priceless bene fit ? ” J 

“Peace, Hester, peace!” replied the old man, with 
gloomy sternness. “It is not granted me to pardon. 
I have no such power as thou tellest me of. My old 
faith, long forgotten, comes back to me, and explains all 
chat we do, and all we suffer. By thy first step awry 
thou didst plant the germ of evil ; but since that mo- 
ment, it has all been a dark necessity. Ye that have 
wronged me are not sinful, save in a kind of typical illu« 


HE ST Jilt AND THE PHYSICIAN. 


203 


eion ; neither am I fiend-like, who have snatched a 
fiend’s office from his hands. It is our fate. Let the 
black flower blossom as it may ! Now go thy ways, and 
deal as thou wilt with yonder man.’^J 

He waived his hand, and betook himself again to hifl 
employment of gathering herbs. 


THE SCARLET JLETTSU. 




XY. 

HESTER AND PEARL. 

So Roger Chillingworth — a deformed old figure, 
with a face that haunted men’s memories longer than 
they liked — took leave of Hester Prynne, and went 
stooping away along the earth. He gathered here and 
there an herb, or grubbed up a root, and put it into the 
basket on his arm. His gray beard almost touched the 
ground, as he crept onward. Hester gazed after him 
a little while, looking with a half fantastic curiosity to 
see whether the tender grass of early spring would not 
be blighted beneath him, and show the wavering track 
of his footsteps, sere and brown, across its cheerful 
verdure. She wondered what sort of herbs they were, 
which the old man was so sedulous to gather. Would 
not the earth, quickened to an evil purpose by the sym- 
pathy of his eye, greet him with poisonous shrubs, of 
species hitherto unknown, that would start up under his 
fingers ? Or might it suffice him, that every wholesome 
growth should be converted into something deleterious 
and malignant at his touch ? Did the sun, which shone 
so brightly everywhere else, really fall upon him ? Oi 
was there, as it rather seemed, a circle of ominous 
shadow moving along with his deformity, whichever 
way he turned himself? And whither was h^* now 
going? Would lie not suddenly sink into the earth, 
leaving a barren and blasted spot, where, in due course 
of time, would be seen deadly nightshade, dogwoc.l heu 


HESTER AND PEARL. 




banc: and whatever else of vegetable wickedness t«ie cli 
mate could produce, all flourishing with hideous luxu- 
riance ? Or would he spread bat’s wings and flee away, 
looking so much the uglier, the higher he rose towards 
heaven ? 

“ Be it sin or no,” said Hester Prynne, bitterly, as she 
still gazed after him, “ I hate the man ! ” 

She upbraided herself for the sentiment, but could not 
overcome or lessen it. Attempting to do so, she thought 
of those long-past days, in a distant land, when he used 
to emerge at eventide from the seclusion of his study 
and sit down in the fire-light of their home, and in the 
light of her nuptial smile. He needed to bask himself 
in that smile, he said, in order that the chill of so many 
lonely hours among his books might be taken off the 
scholar’s heart. Such scenes had once appeared not other- 
wise than happy, but now, as viewed through the dismal 
medium of her subsequent life, they classed themselves 
among her ugliest remembrances. She marvelled how 
such scenes could have been! She marvelled how she 
could ever have been wrought upon to marry him ! She 
deemed it her crime most to be repented of, that she had 
ever endured, and reciprocated, the lukewarm grasp of 
his hand, and had suffered the smile of her lips and eyes 
to mingle and melt into his own. And it seemed a foulei 
offence committed by Eoger Chillingworth, than an} 
which had since been done him, that, in the time wher 
her heart knew no better, he had persuaded her to fancj 
herself happy by his side. 

“ Yes, I hate him ! ” repeated Hester, more bitter!) 
than before. “ He betrayed me ! He has done me wore* 
wrong than I did him ! ’* 


206 


THE SCARLET LETTER. 


Let men tumble to win the hand of woman, urne-ss 
they win along with it the utmost passion of her heart ! 
Else it may be their miserable fortune, as it was Roger 
Chillingworth’s, when some mightier touch than their 
own may have awakened all her sensibilities, to be re- 
proached even for the calm content, the marble image of 
happiness, which they will have imposed upon her as the 
warm reality. But Hester ought long ago to have done 
with this injustice. What did it betoken ? Had seven 
long years, under the torture of the scarlet letter, in- 
flicted so much of misery, and wrought out no repent- 
ance ? 

The emotions of that brief space, while she stood gaz- 
ing after the crooked figure of old Roger Chillingwurth, 
threw a dark light on Hester’s state of mind, revealing 
much that she might not otherwise have acknowledged 
to herself. 

He being gone, she summoned back her child. 

“ Pearl ! Little Pearl ! Where are you ? ” 

Pearl, whose activity of spirit never flagged, had been 
at no loss for amusement while her mother talked with 
the old gatherer of herbs. At first, as already told, she 
had flirted fancifully with her own image in a pool of 
water, beckoning the phantom forth, and — as it declined 
to venture — seeking a passage for herself into its sphere 
of impalpable earth and unattainable sky. Soon finding, 
however, that either she or the image was unreal, she 
turned elsewhere for better pastime. She made little 
boats out of birch-bark, and freighted them with snail- 
shells, and sent out more ventures on the mighty deep 
than any merchant in New England ; but the larger part 
of them foundered near the shore. She seized a live 


HESTKR AND PEARL. 


201 


horse-shoe by the tail, and made prize of several five- 
fingers, and laid out a jelly-fish to melt in the warm sun. 
Then she took up the white foam, that streaked the line 
of the advancing tide, and threw it upon the breeze, 
scampering after it, with winged footsteps, to catch the 
great snow-flakes ere they fell. Perceiving a flock of 
beach-birds, that fed and fluttered along the shore, the 
naughty child picked up her apron full of pebbles, and 
creeping from rock to rock after these small sea-fowl, dis 
played remarkable dexterity in pelting them. One little 
gray bird, with a white breast, Pearl was almost sure, 
had been hit by a pebble, and fluttered away with a 
broken wing. But then the elf-child sighed, and gave 
up her sport ; because it grieved her to have done harm 
to a little being that was as wild as the sea-breeze, or as 
wild as Pearl herself. 

Her final employment was to gather sea-weed, of 
various kinds, and make herself a scarf, or mantle, and 
a head-dress, and thus assume the aspect of a little mer- 
maid. She inherited her mother’s gift for devising drapery 
and costume. As the last touch to her mermaid’s garb, 
Pearl took some eel-grass, and imitated, as best she could, 
on her own bosom, the decoration with which she was so 
familiar on her mother’s. A letter, — the letter A, — but 
freshly green, instead of scarlet! The child bent her 
chin upon her breast, and contemplated this device with 
strange interest ; even as if the one only thing for which 
she had been sent into the world was to make out its 
hidden import. 

“ I wonder if mother will asir me what it means ? ” 
thought Pearl. 

Just then, she heard her mother’s voice, and flitting 


208 


THE SCARLET LETTER. 


along as lightly as one of the little sea-birds, appea ed 
before Hester Prynne, dancing, laughing, and pointing 
her finger to the ornament upon her bosom. 

“ My little Pearl,” said Hester, after a moment’s 
silence, “the green letter, and on thy childish bosom, has 
no purport. But dost thou know, my child, what this 
letter means which thy mother is doomed to wear ? ” 

“ Yes, mother,” said the child. “ It is the great letter 
A. Thou hast taught me in the horn-book.” 

Hester looked steadily into her little face ; but, though 
there was that singular expression which she had so often 
remarked in her black eyes, she could not satisfy herself 
whether Pearl really attached any meaning to the symbol. 
She felt a morbid desire to ascertain the point. 

“ Dost thou know, child, wherefore thy mother wears 
this letter ?” 

“ Truly do I ! ” answered Pearl, looking brightly into 
her mother’s face. “It is for the same reason that the 
minister keeps his hand over his heart ! ” 

“And what reason is that? ” asked Hester, half smil- 
ing at the absurd incongruity of the child’s observation ; 
but, on second thoughts, turning pale. “ What has the 
letter to do with any heart, save mine ? ” 

“ Nay, mother, I have told all I know,” said Pearl, 
more seriously than she was wont to speak. “ Ask yon- 
der old man whom thou hast been talking with ! It may 
be he can tell. But in good earnest now, mother dear, what 
does this scarlet letter mean ? — and why dost thou wear 
it on thy bosom ? — and why does the minister keep his 
hand over his heart ? ” 

She took her mother’s hand in both her own, and 
gazed into her eyes with an earnestness that was seldom 


HESTER AND PEARL. 


209 


seen in her wild and capricious character. The thought 
occurred to Hester, that the child might really be seeking 
to approach her with child-like confidence, and doing 
wha t she could, and as intelligently as she knew how, to 
establish a meeting-point of sympathy. It showed Pearl 
in an unwonted aspect. Heretofore, the mother, while 
loving her child with the intensity of a sole affection, had 
schooled herself to hope for little other return than the 
waywardness of an April breeze ; which spends its time 
in airy sport, and has its gusts of inexplicable passion, and 
is petulant in its best of moods, and chills oftener than 
caresses you, when you take it to your bosom ; in requital 
of which misdemeanors, it will sometimes, of its own 
vague purpose, kiss your cheek with a kind of doubtful 
tenderness, and play gently with your hair, and then 
begone about its other idle business, leaving a dreamy 
pleasure at your heart. And this, moreover, was a moth- 
er’s estimate of the child’s disposition. Any other ob- 
server might have seen few but unamiable traits, and have 
given them a far darker coloring. But now the idea 
came strongly into Hester’s mind, that Pearl, with her 
remarkable precocity and acuteness, might already have 
approached the age when she could be made a friend, 
and intrusted with as much of her mother’s sorrows as 
could be imparted, without irreverence either to the parent 
or the child. In the little chaos of Pearl’s character, 
there might be seen emerging — and could have been, 
from the very first — the steadfast principles of an un- 
flinching courage, — an uncontrollable will, — a sturdy 
pride, which might be disciplined into self-respect, — and 
a bitter scorn of many things, which, when examined, 
might be found to have the taint of falsehood in them, 
14 


210 


THE SCARLET LETTER. 


She possessed affections, too, though hitherto acrid and 
disagreeable, as are the richest flavors of unripe fruit. 
With all these sterling attributes, thought Hester, the 
evil which she inherited from her mother must be great 
indeed, if a noble woman do not grow out of this elfish 
child. 

Pearl’s inevitable tendency to hover about the enigma 
of the scarlet letter seemed an innate quality of her 
being. From the earliest epoch of her conscious life, she 
had entered upon this as her appointed mission. Hester 
had often fancied that Providence had a design of justice 
and retribution, in endowing the child with this marked 
propensity ; but never, until now, had she bethought her- 
self to ask, whether, linked with that design, there might 
not likewise be a purpose of mercy and beneficence. If 
little Pearl were entertained w'ith faith and trust, as a 
spirit messenger no less than an earthly child, might it 
not be her errand to soothe away the sorrow that lay cold 
in her mother’s heart, and converted it into a tomb ? — 
and to help her to overcome the passion, once so wild, 
and even yet neither dead nor asleep, but only impris- 
oned within the same tomb-like heart ? 

Such were some of the thoughts that now stirred in 
Hester’s mind, with as much vivacity of impression as 
if they had actually been whispered into her ear. And 
there was little Pearl, all this while, holding her mother’s 
hand in both her own, and turning her face upward, 
while she put these searching questions, once, and again, 
and still a third time. 

“What does the letter mean, mother? — and why 
dost thou wear it ? — and why does the minister keep his 
hand over his heart ? ” 


HESTER AINU PEARL. 


2U 


u What shall I say ? ” thought Hester to herself. 
“ No ! If this be the price of the child’s sympathy, I 
cannot pay it.” 

Then she spoke aloud. 

“ Silly Pearl,” said she, “ what questions are there ? 
There are many things in this world that a child must 
not ask about. What know I of the minister’s heart ? 
And as for the scarlet letter, I wear it for the sake of 
its gold thread.” 

In all the seven bygone years, Hester Prynne had 
never before been false to the symbol on her bosom. It 
may be that it was the talisman of a stem and severe, 
but yet a guardian spirit, who now forsook her; as 
recognizing that, in spite of his strict watch over her 
heart, some new evil had crept into it, or some old one 
had never been expelled. As for little Pearl, the ear- 
nestness soon passed out of her face. 

But the child did not see fit to let the matter drop. 
Two or three times, as her mother and she went home- 
ward, and as often at supper-time, and w r hile Hester was 
putting her to bed, and once after she seemed to be fairly 
asleep, Pearl looked up, with mischief gleaming in her 
black eyes. 

“ Mother,” said she, “ what does the scarlet letter 
mean ? ” 

And the next morning, the first indication the child 
gave of being awake was by popping up her head from 
the pillow, and making that other inquiry, which she 
had so unaccountably connected with her investigations 
about the scarlet letter : — 

“ Mother ! — Mother ! — Why does the minister keep 
his hand over his heart ? ” 


212 


THE SCARLET LETTER. 


“ Hold thy tongue, naughty child ! ” answered hei 
mother, with an asperity that she had never permitted 
to herself before. “ Do not tease me ; else I shall shut 
thee into the dark closet ! n 


A FOREST WALK. 


213 


XVI. 

A FOREST WALK. 

Hester Prynne remained constant in her resolve to 
make known to Mr. Dimmesdale, at whatever risk of 
present pain or ulterior consequences, the true charac- 
ter of the man who had crept into his intimacy. For 
several days, however, she vainly sought an opportunity 
of addressing him in some of the meditative walks 
which she knew him to be in the habit of taking, along 
the shores of the peninsula, or on the wooded hills of the 
neighboring country. There would have been no scan- 
dal, indeed, nor peril to the holy whiteness of the cler- 
gyman’s good fame, had she visited him in his own 
study ; where many a penitent, ere now, had confessed 
sins of perhaps as deep a dye as the one betokened by the 
scarlet letter But, partly that she dreaded the secret or 
undisguised interference of old Roger Chillingworth, and 
partly that her conscious heart imputed suspicion where 
none could have been felt, and partly that both the min- 
ister and she would need the whole wdde world to breathe 
in, while they talked together, — for all these reasons, 
Hester never thought of meeting him in any narrower 
privacy than beneath the open sky. 

At last, while attending in a sick-chamber, whither 
the Reverend Mr. Dimmesdale had been summoned to 
make a prayer, she learnt that he had gone, the day 
before, to visit the Apostle Eliot, among his Indian con- 
verts. He would probably return, by a certain hour, in 


214 


THE SCARLET LETTER. 


the afternoon of the morrow. Betimes, therefore, the 
next day, Hester took little Pearl, — who was necessa- 
rily the companion of all her mother’s expeditions, how- 
ever inconvenient her presence, — and set forth. 

The road, after the two wayfarers had crossed from 
the peninsula to the mainland, was no other than a foot- 
path. It straggled onward into the mystery of the pri- 
meval forest. This hemmed it in so narrowly, and stood 
so black and dense on either side, and disclosed such 
imperfect glimpses of the sky above, that, to Hester’s 
mind, it imaged not amiss the moral wilderness in which 
she had so long been wandering. The day was chill and 
sombre. Overhead was a gay expanse of cloud, slightly 
stirred, however, by a breeze ; so that a gleam of flick- 
ering sunshine might now and then be seen at its soli- 
tary. play along the path. This flitting cheerfulness was 
always at the further extremity of some long vista through 
the forest. The sportive sunlight — feebly sportive, at 
best, in the predominant pensiveness of the day and 
scene — withdrew itself as they came nigh, and left the 
spots where it had danced the drearier, because they had 
hoped to find them bright. - 

“ Mother,” said little Pearl, “ the sunshine does not 
love you. It runs away and hides itself, because it is 
afraid of something on your bosom. Now, see ! There 
it is, playing, a good way off. Stand you here, and let 
me run and catch it. I am but a child. It will not flee 
from me ; for I wear nothing on my bosom yet ! ” 

“ Nor ever will, my child, I hope,” said Hester. 

“ And why not, mother ? ” asked Pearl, stopping short, 
just at the beginning of her race. “ Will not it come of 
it&* own accord, when I am a woman grown ? ” 


A FOREST WALK. 


21E 


“ Run away, child,” answered her mother, “ and catch 
the sunshine ! It will soon be gone.” 

Pearl set forth, at a great pace, and, as Hester smiled 
to perceive, did actually catch the sunshine, and stood 
laughing in the midst of it, all brightened by its splen- 
dor, and scintillating with the vivacity excited by rapid 
motion. The light lingered about the lonely child, as if 
glad of such a playmate, until her mother had drawn 
almost nigh enough to step into the magic circle too. 

“ It will go now,” said Pearl, shaking her head. 

“ See ! ” answered Hester, smiling. “ Now I can 
stretch out my hand, and grasp some of it.” 

As she attempted to do so, the sunshine vanished ; 
or, to judge from the bright expression that was dancing 
on Pearl’s features, her mothei could have fancied that 
the child had absorbed it into herself, and would give it 
forth again, with a gleam about her path, as they should 
plunge into some gloomier shade. There was no other 
attribute that so much impressed her with a sense of 
new and untransmitted vigor in Pearl’s nature, as this 
never-failing vivacity of spirits ; she had not the disease 
of sadness, which almost all children, in these latter 
days, inherit, with the scrofula, from the troubles of their 
ancestors. Perhaps this too was a disease, and but the 
reflex of the wild energy with which Hester had fought 
against her sorrows, before Pearl’s birth. It .was cer- 
tainly a doubtful charm, imparting a hard, metallic lustre 
to the child’s character. She wanted — what some peo- 
ple want throughout life — a grief that should deeply 
touch her, and thus humanize and make her capable of 
sympathy. But there was time enough yet for little 
Pearl 


216 


THE SCARLET LETTER. 


“ Come, my child ! ” said Hester, looking about hei 
from the spot where Pearl had stood still in the sun 
shine. “ We will sit down a little way within the wood, 
and rest ourselves.” 

“ I am not aweary, mother,” replied the little girl 
“ But you may sit down, if you will tell me a story 
meanwhile.” 

“ A story, child ! ” said Hester. “ And about what ? ” 

“ O, a story about the Black Man,” answered Pearl, 
taking hold of her mother’s gown, and looking up, half 
earnestly, half mischievously, into her face. “ How he 
haunts this forest, and carries a book with him, — a big, 
heavy book, with iron clasps ; and how this ugly Black 
Man offers his book and an iron pen to everybody that 
meets him here among the trees ; and they are to write 
their names with their own blood. And then he sets his 
mark on their bosoms ! Didst thou ever meet the Black 
Man, mother ? ” 

“ And who told you this story, Pearl ? ” asked her 
mother, recognizing a common superstition of the period. 

“ It was the old dame in the chimney-corner, at the 
house where you watched last night,” said the child. 
But she fancied me asleep while she was talking of 
it. She said that a thousand and a thousand people had 
met him here, and had written in his book, and have hi? 
mark on .them. And that ugly-tempered lady, old Mis- 
tress Hibbins, was one. And, mother, the old dame said 
that this scarlet letter was the Black Man’s mark on 
thee, and that it glows like a red flame when thou 
meetest him at midnight, here in the dark wood. Is it 
true, mother ? And dost thou go to meet him in the 
night-time ? ” 


A FOBEST WALK. 


2il 


“Didst tnou ever awake, and find thy mother gone?” 
►sked Hestei. 

“ Not that 1 remember,” said the child. w If thou 
fearest to leave me in our cottage, thou mightest take 
me along with thee. I would very gladly go ! But, 
mother, tell me now ! Is there such a Black Man ? 
And didst thou ever meet him ? And is this his mark ?” 

“ Wilt thou let me be at peace, if I once tell thee?” 
asked her mother. 

“ Yes, if thou tellest me all,” answered Pearl. 

“ Once in my life I met the Black Man ! ” said her 
mother. “ This scarlet letter is his mark ! ” 

Thus conversing, they entered sufficiently deep into 
the wood to secure themselves from the observation of 
any casual passenger along the forest track. Here they 
sat down on a luxuriant heap of moss ; which, at some 
epoch of the preceding century, had been a gigantic 
pine, with its roots and trunk in the darksome shade, 
and its head aloft in the upper atmosphere. It was a 
little dell where they had seated themselves, with a leaf- 
strewn bank rising gently on either side, and a brook 
flowing through the midst, over a bed of fallen and 
drowned leaves. The trees impending over it had 
Aung down great branches, from time to time, which 
choked up the current and compelled it to form eddies 
And black depths at some points; while, in its swifter 
md livelier passages, there appeared a channel-way of 
pebbles, and brown, sparkling sand. Letting the eyes 
d>llow along the course of the stream, they could catch 
the reflected light from its water, at some short distance 
within the forest, but soon lost all traces of it amid the 
oewilderment of tree-trunks and underbrush, and here 


2 13 


THE SCARLET LETTER 


and there a huge rock covered over with gray lichens 
All these giant trees and boulders of granite seemed 
intent on making a mystery of the course of this small 
brook; fearing, perhaps, that, with its never-ceasing 
loquacity, it should whisper tales out of the heart of the 
old forest whence it flowed, or mirror its revelations on 
the smooth surface of a pool. Continually, indeed, as it 
stole onward, the streamlet kept up a babble, kind, quiet, 
soothing, but melancholy, like the voice of a young child 
that was spending its infancy without playfulness, and 
knew not how to be merry among sad acquaintance and 
events of sombre hue. 

“ O brook ! O foolish and tiresome little brook ! r 
cried Pearl, after listening awhile to its talk. “ Why 
art thou so sad ? Pluck up a spirit, and do not be all 
the time sighing and murmuring ! ” 

But the brook, in the course of its little lifetime 
among the forest-trees, had gone through so solemn an 
experience that it could not help talking about it, and 
seemed to have nothing else to say. Pearl resembled 
the brook, inasmuch as the current of her life gushed 
from a well-spring as mysterious, and had flowed through 
scenes shadowed as heavily with gloom. But, unlike 
the little stream, she danced and sparkled, and prattled 
airily along her course. 

“What does this sad little brook say, mother?* 
inquired she. 

“If thou hadst a sorrow of thine own, the brna* 
might tell thee of it,’* answered her mother, “ even as it 
is telling me of mine ! But now, Pearl, I hear a foot- 
step along the path, and the noise of one putting aside 


A FOREST WALK. 


219 


the branches. I would have thee betake thyself to play 
and leave me to speak with him that comes yonder.” 

“ Is it the Black Man ? ” asked Pearl. 

“ Wilt thou go and play, child ? ” repeated her mothei 
“ But do not stray far into the wood. And take heed 
that thou come at my first call.” 

“ Yes, mother,” answered Pearl. “ But if it be tho 
Black Man, wilt thou not let me stay a moment, and 
look at him, with his big book under his arm ? ” 

“ Go, silly child ! ” said her mother, impatiently. “ It 
is no Black Man ! Thou canst see him now, through 
the trees. It is the minister ! ” 

“ And so it is ! ” said the child. “ And, mother, he 
has his hand over his heart ! Is it because, when the 
minister wrote his name in the book, the Black Man set 
his mark in that place ? But why does he not wear it 
outside his bosom, as thou dost, mother ? ” 

“ Go now, child, and thou shalt tease me as thou wilt 
another time,” cried Hester Prynne. “ But do not stray 
far. Keep where thou canst hear the babble of the 
brook.” 

The child went singing away, following up the cur- 
rent of the brook, and striving to mingle a more light- 
some cadence with its melancholy voice. But the little 
stream would not be comforted, and still kept telling its 
unintelligible secret of some very mournful mystery 
that had happened — or making a prophetic lamentation 
about something that was yet to happen — within the 
verge of the dismal forest. So Pearl, who had enough 
of shadow in her own little life, chose to break off all 
acquaintance with this repining brook. She set herself, 
.herefore, to gathering violets and wood-anemones, tnd 


220 


THE SCARLET LETTER. 


some scarlet columbines that she found growing in the 
crevices of a high rock. 

When her elf-child had departed, Hester Prynne made 
a step or two towards the track that led through the 
forest, but still remained under the deep shadow of the 
trees. She beheld the minister advancing along the 
path, entirely alone, and leaning on a staff which he had 
cut by the way-side. He looked haggard and feeble, 
and betrayed a nerveless despondency in his air, which 
had never so remarkably characterized him in his walks 
about the settlement, nor in any other situation where 
he deemed himself liable to notice. Here it was wofully 
visible, in this intense seclusion of the forest, which of 
itself would have been a heavy trial to the spirits. 
There was a listlessness in his gait ; as if he saw no 
reason for taking one step further, nor felt any desire 
to do so, but would have been glad, could he be glad of 
anything, to fling himself down at the root of the near- 
est tree, and lie there passive, forevermore. The leaves 
might bestrew him, and the soil gradually accumulate 
and form a little hillock over his frame, no matter 
whether there were life in it or no. Death was too 
definite an object to be wished for, or avoided. 

To Hester’s eye, the Reverend Mr. Dimmesdale ex- 
hibited no symptom of positive and vivacious suffering 
except that, as little Pearl had remarked, he kept his 
hand over his heart. 


THE PASTOR AND HIS PARISHIONER. 


221 


XVII. 

THE PASTOR AND HIS PARISHIONER. 

Slowly as the minister walked, he had almost gone 
by, before Hester Prynne could gather voice enough to 
attract his observation. At length, she succeeded. 

“ Arthur Dimmesdale ! ” she said, faintly at first ; 
then louder, but hoarsely. “ Arthur Dimmesdale ! ” 

“Who speaks? ” answered the minister. 

Gathering himself quickly up, he stood more erect, 
like a man taken by surprise in a mood to which he 
was reluctant to have witnesses. Throwing his eyes 
anxiously in the direction of the voice, he indistinctly 
beheld a form under the trees, clad in garments so 
sombre, and so little relieved from the gray twilight 
into which the clouded sky and the heavy foliage had 
darkened the noontide, that he knew not whether it 
were a woman or a shadow. It may be, that his path- 
way through life was haunted thus, by a spectre that 
had stolen out from among his thoughts. 

He made a step nigher, and discovered the scarlet 
letter. 

“ Hester ! Hester Prynne ! ” said he. “ Is it thou ? 
Art thou in life ? ” 

“ Even so ! ” she answered. “ In such life as has 
been mine these seven years past ! And thou, Arthur 
Dimmesdale, dost thou yet live ? ” 

It w\as no wonder that they thus questioned one an- 
other’s actual and bodily existence, and even doubted 


222 


TITE SCARLET LETTER. 


of their own So strangely did they meet, in the dun 
wood, that it was like the first encounter, in the world 
beyond the grave, of two spirits who had been inti- 
mately connected in their former life, but now stood 
coldly shuddering, in mutual dread ; as not yet familiar 
with their state, nor wonted to the companionship of 
disembodied beings. Each a ghost, and awe-stricken at 
the other ghost ! They were awe-stricken likewise at 
themselves ; because the crisis flung back to them their 
consciousness, and revealed to each heart its history and 
experience, as life never does; except at such breathless 
epochs. The soul beheld its features in the mirror of 
che passing moment. It was with fear, and tremulously, 
and, as it were, by a slow, reluctant necessity, that 
Arthur Dimmesdale put forth his hand, chill as death, 
and touched the chill hand of Hester Prynne. The 
grasp, cold as it was, took away what was dreariest in 
the interview. They now felt themselves, at least, 
inhabitants of the same sphere. 

Without a word more spoken, — neither he nor she 
assuming the guidance, but with an unexpressed con- 
sent, — they glided back into the shadow of the woods, 
whence Hester had emerged, ant sat down on the heap 
of moss where she and Pearl v*ad before been sitting. 
When they found voice to speak, it was, at first, only 
to utter remarks and inquiries sucn as any two ac- 
quaintance might have made, about the gloomy sky, the 
threatening storm, and, next, the health of each. Thus 
they went onward, not boldly, but step by step, into the 
themes that were brooding deepest in their hearts. So 
long estranged by fate and circumstances, they needed 
something slight and casual to run before, and throw 


THE PASTOR AKD HIS PARISHIONER. 


223 


&pen the doors of intercourse, so that their real thoughts 
might be led across the threshold. 

After a while, the ministei fixed his eyes on HesteT 
Prynne’s. 

“ Hester,” said he, “ hast thou found peace ? ” 

She smiled drearily, looking down upon her bosom. 

“ Hast thou ? ” she asked. 

“None! — nothing but despair!” he answered. 
“What else could I look for, being what I am, and 
leading such a life as mine? Were I an atheist, — a 
man devoid of conscience, — a wretch with coarse and 
brutal instincts, — I might have found peace, long ere 
now. Nay, I never should have lost it ! But, as matters 
stand with my soul, whatever of good capacity there 
originally was in me, all of God’s gifts that were the 
choicest have become the ministers of spiritual torment. 
Hester, I am most miserable ! ” 

“ The people reverence thee,” said Hester. “ And 
surely thou workest good among them ! Doth this bring 
thee no comfort ? ” 

“ More misery, Hester ! — only the more misery ! ” 
answered the clergyman, with a bitter smile. “ As con- 
cerns the good which I may appear to do, I have no faith 
in it. It must needs be a delusion. What can a ruined 
soul, like mine, effect towards the redemption of other 
souls ? — or a polluted scul, towards their purification ? 
And as for the people’s reference, would that it were 
turned to scorn and hatred ! Canst thou deem it, Hes- 
ter, a consolation, that I must stand up in my pulpit, and 
meet so many eyes turned upward to my face, as if the 
light of heaven were beaming from it ! — must see my 
flock hungry for the truth, and listening to my words as 


224 


THE SCARLET LETTER. 


if a tongue of Pentecost were speaking ! — and then look 
inward, and discern the black reality of what they idol- 
ize ? I have laughed, in bitterness and agony of heart, 
at the contrast between what I seem and what I am ! 
And Satan laughs at it ! ” 

“ You wrong yourself in this,” said Hester, gently. 
“ You have deeply and sorely repented. Your sin is left 
behind you, in the days long past. Your present life is 
not less holy, in very truth, than it seems in people’s 
eyes. Is there no reality in the penitence thus sealed 
and witnessed by good works ? And wherefore should 
it not bring you peace ? ” 

“ No, Hester, no ! ” replied the clergyman. “ There 
is no substance in it ! It is cold and dead, and can do 
nothing for me ! Of penance, I have had enough ! Of 
penitence, there has been none ! Else, I should long 
ago have thrown off these garments of mock holiness, 
and have shown myself to mankind as they will see 
me at the judgment-seat. Happy are you, Hester, that 
wear the scarlet letter openly upon your bosom ! Mine 
bums in secret ! Thou little knowest what a relief it 
is, after the torment of a seven years’ cheat, to look into 
an eye that recognizes me for what I am ! Had I cue 
friend, — or were it my worst enemy ! — to whom, when 
sickened with the praises of all other men, I could daily 
betake myself, and be known as the vilest of all sinners, 
methinks my soul might keep itself alive thereby. Even 
thus much of tmth would save me ! But, now, it is all 
falsehood ! — all emptiness ! — all death ! ” 

Hester Prynne looked into his face, but hesitated to 
speak. Yet, uttering his long-restrained emotions sc 
vehemently as he did, his words here offered her the 


THE PASTOR AND HIS PARISHIONER. 


225 


Tory point of circumstances in which to interpose what 
she came to say. She conquered her fears, and spoke. 

“ Such a friend as thou hast even now wished for/ 
said she, “ with whom to weep over thy sin, thou hast 
in me, the partner of it ! ” — Again she hesitated, but 
brought out the words with an effort. — “ Thou hast long 
had such an enemy, and dwellest with him, under the 
same roof ! ” 

The minister started to his feet, gasping for breath, 
and clutching at his heart, as if he would have torn it 
out of his bosom. 

“ Ha ! What sayest thou ! ” cried he. “ An enemy ! 
And under mine own roof! What mean you ? ” 

Hester Prynne was now fully sensible of the deep 
injury for which she was responsible to this unhappy 
man, in permitting him to lie for so many years, or. 
indeed, for a single moment, at the mercy of one whose 
purposes could not be other than malevolent. The very 
contiguity of his enemy, beneath whatever mask the lat 
ter might conceal himself, was enough to disturb the 
magnetic sphere of a being so sensitive as Arthur Dim- 
mesdale. There had been a period when Hester was 
less alive to this consideration ; or, perhaps, in the mis- 
anthropy of her own trouble, she left the minister to bear 
what she might picture to herself as a more tolerable 
doom. But of late, since the night of his vigil, all her 
sympathies towards him had been both softened and 
invigorated. She now read his heart more accurately 
She doubted not, that the continual presence of Rogei 
Chillingworth, — the secret poison of his malignity, in- 
fecting all the air about him, — and his authorized inter- 
ference, as a physician, with the minister’s physical and 
15 


226 


THE SCARLET LETTER. 


spiritual infirmities, — that these bad opportunities had 
been turned to a cruel purpose. By means of them, the 
sufferer’s conscience had been kept in an irritated state, 
the tendency of which was, not to cure by wholesome 
pain, but to disorganize and corrupt his spiritual being. 
Its result, on earth, could hardly fail to be insanity, and 
hereafter, that eternal alienation from the Good and True, 
of which madness is perhaps the earthly type. 

Such was the ruin to which she had brought the man, 
once, — nay, why should we not speak it ? — still so pas- 
sionately loved! Hester felt that the sacrifice of the 
clergyman’s good name, and death itself, as she had 
already told Roger Chillingworth, would have been infi- 
nitely preferable to the alternative which she had taken 
upon herself to choose. And now, rather than have had 
this grievous wrong to confess, she would gladly have 
lain down on the forest-leaves, and died there, at Arthur 
Diinmesdale’s feet. 

“ O Arthur,” cried she, “ forgive me ! In all things 
else, I have striven to be true ! Truth was the one 
virtue which I might have held fast, and did hold fast, 
through all extremity; save when thy good, — thy life, 

— thy fame, — were put in question! Then I con- 
sented to a deception. But a lie is never good, even 
though death threaten on the other side ! Dost thou 
not see what I would say ? That old man ! — the phy- 
sician! — he whom they call Roger Chillingwo-th ! — 
he was my husband ! ” 

The minister looked at her, for an instant, with all 
that violence of passion, which — intermixed, in more 
shapes than one, with his higher, purer, softer qualities, 

— was, in fact, the portion of him which the D^vil 


THE PASTOR AND HIS PARISHIONER. 


221 


claimed, and through which he sought to win the rest. 
Never was there a blacker or a fiercer frown than Hes* 
ter now encountered. For the brief space that it lasted, 
it was a dark transfiguration. But his character had 
been so much enfeebled by suffering, that even its lower 
energies were incapable of more than a temporary strug- 
gle. He sank down on the ground, and buried his face 
in his hands. 

“ I might have known it,” murmured he. “ I did 
know it! Was not the secret told me, in the natural 
recoil of my heart, at the first sight of him, and as often 
as I have seen him since ? Why did I not understand ? 
O Hester Prynne, thou little, little knowest all the hor- 
ror of this thing ! And the shame ! — the indelicacy ! 
— the horrible ugliness of this exposure of a sick and 
guilty heart to the very eye that would gloat over it l 
Woman, woman, thou art accountable for this ! I can- 
not forgive thee ! ” 

“ Thou shalt forgive me ! ” cried Hester, flinging her- 
self on the fallen leaves beside him. “ Let God pun 
ish ! Thou shalt forgive ! ” 

With sudden and desperate tenderness, she threw her 
arms around him, and pressed his head against her bosom : 
little caring though his cheek rested on the scarlet letter. 
He would have released himself, but strove in vain to do 
so. Hester would not set him free, lest he should look 
her sternly in the face. All the world had frowned on 
her, — for seven long years had it frowned upon this 
Jonely woman, — and still she bore it all, nor ever once 
turned away her firm, sad eyes. Heaven, likewise, had 
frowned upon her, and she had not died. But the frown 


228 


THE SCARLET LETTER. 


of this pa*e, weak, sinful, and soi row-stricken man was 
what Hester could not bear and live ! 

“Wilt thou yet forgive me !” she repeated, over and 
over again. “Wilt thou not frown? Wilt thou for 
$pve ? ” 

“1 do forgive you, Hester,” replied the minister, at 
length, with a deep utterance, out of an abyss of sadness, 
but no anger. “ I freely forgive you now. May God 
forgive us both ! We are not, Hester, the worst sinners 
in the world. There is one worse than even the pol- 
luted priest ! That old man’s revenge has been blacker 
than my sin. He has violated, in cold blood, the sanc- 
tity of a human heart. Thou and I, Hester, never did 
o!” 

“ Never, never ! ” whispered she. “ What we did had 
a consecration of its own. We felt it so ! We said so 
to each other ! Hast thou forgotten it ? ” 

“ Hush, Hester ! ” said Arthur Dimmesdale, rising 
from the ground. “ No ; I have not forgotten ! ” 

They sat down again, side by side, and hand clasped 
in hand, on the mossy trunk of the fallen tree. Life had 
never brought them a gloomier hour ; it was the point 
whither their pathway had so long been tending, and 
darkening ever, as it stole along; — and yet it enclosed 
a charm that made them linger upon it, and claim an- 
other, and another, and, after all, another moment. The 
forest was obscure around them, and creaked with a 
blast that was passing through it. The boughs were 
tossing heavily above their heads ; while one solemn old 
tree groaned dolefully to another, as if telling the sad 
story of the pair that sat beneath, or constrained to fore- 
bode evil to come. 


fHE PASTOR AND HIS PARISHIONER 

And yet they lingered. How dreary looked the forest- 
track that led backward to the settlement, where Hester 
Prynne must take up again the burden of her ignominy, 
and the minister the hollow mockery of his good name ! 
So they lingered an instant longer. No golden light had 
ever been so precious as the gloom of this dark forest. 
Here, seen only by his eyes, the scarlet letter need not 
bum into the bosom of the fallen woman ! Here, seen 
only by her eyes, Arthur Dimmesdale, false to God and 
man, might be, for one moment, true ! 

He started at a thought that suddenly occurred to 
him. 

“Hester,” cried he, “here is a new horror ! Roger 
Chillingworth knows your purpose to reveal his true 
character. Will he continue, then, to keep our secret ? 
What will now be the course of his revenge ? ” 

“ There is a strange secrecy in his nature,” replied 
Hester, thoughtfully ; “ and it has grown upon him by 
the hidden practices of his revenge. I deem it not likely 
that he will betray the secret. He will doubtless seek 
other means of satiating his dark passion.” 

“ And I ! — how am I to live longer, breathing the 
same air with this deadly enemy?” exclaimed Arthur 
Dimmesdale, shrinking within himself, and pressing his 
hand nervously against his heart, — a gesture that had 
grown involuntary with him. “ Think for me, Hester ! 
Thou art strong. Resolve for me ! ” 

“ Thou must dwell no longer with this man,” said 
Hester, slowly and firmly. “Thy heart must be no 
longer under his evil eye ! ” 

“ It were far worse than death ! ” replied the minister 
* But how to avoid it ? What choice remains to roe ? 


THE S< ARLF.T LETTER. 


0*0 

Shall I lie down again on these withered leaves, where 
I cast myself when thou didst tell me what he was \ 
Must I sink down there, and die at once 

“ Alas, what a ruin has befallen thee ! ” said Hester, 
with the tears gushing into her eyes. “Wilt thou die 
for very weakness ? There is no other cause ! ” 

“ The judgment of God is on me,” answered the con 
science-stricken priest. “It is too mighty for me to 
struggle with ! ” 

“Heaven would show mercy,” rejoined Hester, “hadst 
thou but the strength to take advantage of it.” 

“ Be thou strong for me ! ” answered he. “Advise me 
what to do.” 

“ Is the world, then, so narrow ? ” exclaimed Hester 
Prynne, fixing her deep eyes on the minister’s, and in- 
stinctively exercising a magnetic power over a spirit so 
chattered and subdued that it could hardly hold itself 
erect. “ Doth the universe lie within the compass of 
yonder town, which only a little time ago was but a leaf- 
strewn desert, as lonely as this around us ? Whither 
leads yonder forest track ? Backward to the settlement, 
thou sayest ! Yes ; but onward, too ! Deeper it goes, 
and deeper, into the wilderness, less plainly to be seen 
at every step ; until, some few miles hence, the yellow 
leaves will show no vestige of the white man’s tread. 
There thou art free ! So brief a journey would bring 
thee from a world where thou hast been most wretched, 
to one where thou mayest still be happy ! Is there not 
shade enough in all this boundless forest to hide thy 
heart from the gaze of Roger Chillingworth ? ” 

“Yes, Hester; but only under the fallen leaves!’ 
replied the minister, with a sad smile. 


THE PASTOR AND HIS PARISHIONER. 


231 


“ Then there is the broad pathway of the sea ! ” con- 
tinued Hester. “It brought thee hither. If thou so 
choose, it will bear thee back again. In our native land, 
whether in some remote rural village or in vast London, 

— or, surely, in Germany, in France, in pleasant Italy, 

— thou wouldst be beyond his power and knowledge ! 
And what hast thou to do with all these iron men, and 
their opinions ? They have kept thy better part in bond- 
age too long already ! ” 

“ It cannot be ! ” answered the minister, listening as 
if he were called upon to realize a dream. “ I am pow- 
erless to go! Wretched and sinful as I am, I have had 
no other thought than to drag on my earthly existence in 
the sphere where Providence hath placed me. Lost as 
my own soul is, I would still do what I may for other 
human souls ! I dare not quit my post, though an unfaith- 
ful sentinel, whose sure reward is death and dishonor, 
when his dreary watch shall come to an end ! ” 

“ Thou art crushed under this seven years’ weight ot 
misery,” replied Hester, fervently resolved to buoy him 
up with her own energy. “ But thou shalt leave it all 
behind thee ! It shall not cumber thy steps, as thou 
treadest along the forest-path ; neither shalt thou freight 
the ship with it, if thou prefer to cross the sea. Leave 
this wreck and ruin here where it hath happened. Med- 
dle no more with it ! Begin all anew ! Hast thou ex- 
hausted possibility in the failure of this one trial ? Not 
so ! The future is yet full of trial and success. There 
is happiness to be enjoyed ! There is good to be done ! 
Exchange this false life of thine for a true one. B*», if 
„hy spirit summon thee to such a mission, the teacher 
tnd apostle of the red men. Or, — as is more thy 


232 


THE SCARLET LETTER. 


nature, — be a scholar an I a sage among the wisest and 
the most renowned of the cultivated world. Preach ! 
Write ! Act ! Do anything, save to lie down and die' 
Give up this name of Arthur Dimmesdale, and make 
thyself another, and a high one, such as thou canst wear 
without fear or shame. Why shouldst thou tarry so 
much as one other day in the torments that have so 
gnawed into thy life ! — that have made thee feeble to 
will and to do ! — that will leave thee powerless even to 
iepent ! Up, and away ! ” 

“ O Hester ! ” cried Arthur Dimmesdale, in whose 
eyes a fitful light, kindled by her enthusiasm, flashed 
up and died away, “ thou tellest of running a race to a 
man whose knees are tottering beneath him ! 1 must 

die here ! There is not the strength or courage left me 
to venture into the wide, strange, difficult world, alone ! ” 

It was the last expression of the despondency of a 
broken spirit. He lacked energy to grasp the better fo* 
tune that se?med within his reach. 

He repeated the word. 

“ Alone, Hester ! ” 

“ Thou shalt not go aloi/3 ! ” answered she, in a deep 
whisper. 

Then, all was spoken ! 


A FLOOD OF SUNSHINE. 


‘233 


XVIII. 

A FLOOD OF SUNSHINE. 

Akinua Dimmesdale gazed into Hester’s face with a 
/aok in which hope and joy shone out, indeed, but with 
fear betwixt them, and a kind of horror at her boldness, 
whfc had spoken what he vaguely hinted at, but dared 
not speak. 

But Hester Prynne, with a mind of native courage and 
activity, and for so long a period not merely estranged, 
but outlawed, from society, had habituated herself to such 
latitude of speculation as was altogether foreign to the 
clergyman. She had wandered, without rule or guid- 
ance, in a moral wilderness ; as vast, as intricate and 
shadowy, as the untamed forest, amid the gloom of which 
they were now holding a colloquy that was to decide their 
fate. Her intellect and heart had their home, as it were, 
in desert places, where she roamed as freely a? the wild 
Indian in his woods. For years past she had looked from 
this estranged point of view at human institutions, and 
whatever priests or legislators had established ; criticising 
all with hardly more reverence than the Indian would feel 
for the clerical band, the judicial robe, the pillory, the 
gallows, the fireside, or the • church. The tendency of 
her fate and fortunes had been to set her free. The 
scarlet letter was her passport into regions whe^e othel 
women dared not tread. Shame, Despair, Solitude- 
These had been her teachers, — stern and wild ones, — 


234 


THE SCARLET LETTER- 


and they had made her strong, but taught her much 
amiss. 

The minister, on the other hand, had never gone 
through an experience calculated to lead him beyond the 
scope of generally received laws ; although, in a single 
instance, he had so fearfully transgressed one of the most 
sacred of them.[ But this had been a sin of passion, not 
of principle, nor even purpose^ Since that wretcJbea 
epoch, he had watched, with morbid zeal and minuteness, 
not his acts. — for those it was easy to arrange,— 
but each breath of emotion, and his every thought. At 
the head of the social system, as the clergymen of that 
day stood, he was only the more trammelled by its regu 
lations, its principles and even its prejudices. As a 
priest, the framework of his order inevitably hemmed him 
jn. As a man who had once sinned, but who kept his 
conscience all alive and painfully sensitive by the fretting 
of an unhealed wound, he might have been supposed 
safer within the line of virtue than if he had never 
sinned at all. 

Thus, we seem to see that, as regarded Hester Prynne, 
the whole seven years of outlaw and ignominy had been 
little other than a preparation for this very hour. But 
Arthur Dimmesdale ! Were such a man once more to 
fall, what plea could bdHTged in extenuation of his crime ? 
None ; unless it avail him somewhat, that he was broken 
down by long and exquisite suffering ; that his mind was 
darkened and confused by the very remorse which har- 
rowed it; that, between fleeing as an avowed criminal, 
and remaining as a hypocrite, conscience might find it 
hard to strike the balance ; that it was human to avoid 
the peril of death and infamy, and the inscrutable machi. 


A FLOOL> OF SUNSHINE. 


235 


nations of an enemy ; that, finally, to this poor pilgrim, 
on his dreary and desert path, faint, sick, miserable, there 
appeared a glimpse of human affection and sympathy, a 
new life, and a true one, in exchange for the heavy doom 
which he was now expiating. And be the stern and sad 
truth spoken, that the breach which guilt has once made 
into the human soul is never, in this mortal state, repaired. 
It may be watched and guarded; so that the enemy 
shall not force his way again into the citadel, and might 
even, in his subsequent assaults, select some other avenue, 
in preference to that where he had formerly succeeded. 
But there is still the ruined wall, and, near it, the stealthy 
tread of the foe that would win over again his unforgot- 
ten triumph. | 

The struggle, if there were one, need not be described. 
Let it suffice, that the clergyman resolved to flee, and not 
alone. 

“ If, in all these past seven years,” thought he, “ I 
could recall one instant of peace or hope, I would yet 
endure, for the sake of that earnest of Heaven’s mercy. 
But now, — since I am irrevocably doomed, — wherefore 
should I not snatch the solace allowed to the condemned 
culprit before his execution ? Or, if this be the path to 
a better life, as Hester would persuade me, I surely give 
up no fairer prospect by pursuing it! Neither can l 
any longer live without her companionship ; so powerful 
is she to sustain, — so tender to soothe! O Thou to 
whom I dare not lift mine eyes, wilt Thou yet paidon 
me I ” 

“ Thou wilt go ! ” said Hester, calmly, as he met her 
glance. 

The decision once made, a glow of strange enjoyment 


236 


THE SCARLET LETTFK. 


threw its flickering brightness over the trouble af hi* 
breast. It was the exhilarating effect — upon a prisoner 
just escaped from the dungeon of his own heart — of 
breathing the wild, free atmosphere of an unredeemed, 
unchristianized, lawless region. His spirit rose, as i. 
were, with a bound, and attained a nearer prospect of 
the sky, than throughout all the misery which had kept 
him grovelling on the earth. Of a deeply religious 
temperament, there was inevitably a tinge of the devo- 
tional in his mood. 

“ Do I feel joy again ? ” cried he, wondering at him- 
self. “ Methought the genn of it was dead in me ! O 
Hester, thou art my better angel ! I seem to have flung 
myself — sick, sin-stained, and sorrow-blackened — down 
upon these forest-leaves, and to have risen up all made 
anew, and with new powers to glorify Him that hath been 
merciful ! This is already the better life ! Why did we 
not find it sooner ? ” 

“ Let us not look back,” answered Hester Prynne. 
“ The past is gone ! Wherefore should we linger upon 
it now ? See ! With this symbol, I undo it all, and 
make it as it had never been ! ” 

So speaking, she undid the clasp that fastened the scar- 
let letter, and, taking it from her bosom, threw it to a dis- 
tance among the withered leaves. The mystic token 
alighted on the hither verge of the stream. With a 
hand’s breadth further flight it would have fallen into the 
water, and have given the little brook another woe to 
carry onward, besides the unintelligible tale which it still 
kept murmuring about. But there lay the embroidered 
letter, glittering like a lost jewel, which some ill-fated 
vanderer might pick up, an;l thenceforth be haunted by 


A. flood of sunshine. 


237 


strange phantoms of guilt, sinkings of the heart, and 
unaccountable misfortune. 

The stigma gone, Hester heaved a long, deep sigh, in 
tvhich the burden of shame and anguish departed from 
hei spirit. O exquisite relief! She had not known the 
weight, until she felt the freedom ! By another impulse, 
she took off the formal cap that confined her hair ; and 
down it fell upon her shoulders, dark and rich, with at 
once a shadow and a light in its abundance, and impart- 
ing the charm of softness to her features. There played 
around her mouth, and beamed out of her eyes, a radiant 
and tender smile, that seemed gushing from the very 
heart of womanhood. A crimson flush was glowing on 
her cheek, that had been long so pale. Her sex, her 
youth, and the whole richness of her beauty, came back 
from what men call the irrevocable past, and clustered 
themselves, with her maiden hope, and a happiness before 
unknown, within the magic circle of this hour. And, as 
if the gloom of the earth and sky had been but the efflu- 
ence of these two mortal hearts, it vanished with their 
sorrow. All at once, as with a sudden smile of heaven, 
forth burst the sunshine, pouring a very flood into the 
obscure forest, gladdening each green leaf, transmuting 
the yellow fallen ones to gold, and gleaming adown the 
jjray trunks of the solemn trees. The objects that had 
made a shadow hitherto, embodied the brightness now. 
The course of the little brook might be traced by its 
mei ry gleam afar into the wood’s heart of mystery, which 
had become a mystery of joy. 

Such was the sympathy of Nature — that wild, heathen 
Nature of the forest, never subjugated by human iaw, 
nor illumined by higher truth — with the bliss of these two 


238 


THE SCARLET LETTER. 


spirits ! Love, whether newly born, or aroused from < 
death-like slumber, must always create a sunshine, filling 
the heart so full of radiance, that it overflows upon the 
outward world. Had the forest still kept its gloom, it 
would have been bright in Hester’s eyes, and bright in 
Arthur Dimmesdale’s ! 

Hester looked at him with the thrill of another joy. 

“ Thou must know Pearl ! ” said she. “ Our little 
Pearl! Thou hast seen her, — yes, I know it! — but 
thou wilt see her now with other eyes. She is a strange 
child ! I hardly comprehend her ! But thou wilt love 
her dearly, as I do, and wilt advise me how to deal with 
her.” 

“ Dost thou think the child will be glad to know me ? ” 
asked the minister, somewhat uneasily. “ I have long 
shrunk from children, because they often show a distrust, 
— a backwardness to be familiar with me. I have even 
been afraid of little Pearl ! ” 

“ Ah, that was sad ! ” answered the mother. “ But 
she will love thee dearly, and thou her. She is not far 
off. I will call her ! Pearl ! Pearl ! ” 

“ I see the child,” observed the minister. “ Yonder she 
is, standing in a streak of sunshine, a good way off, on the 
other side of the brook. So thou thinkest the child will 
love me ? ” 

Hester smiled, and again called to Pearl, who was 
visible, at some distance, as the minister had described 
her, like a bright-apparelled vision, in a sunbeam, which 
fell down upon her through an arch of boughs. The ray 
quivered to and fro, making her figure dim or distinct, — 
now like a real child now like a child’s spirit, — as the 


A FLOOD OF SUNSHINS. 


2 \& 


splendor went and came again. She heard her mother's 
voice, and approached slowly through the forest. 

Pearl had not found the hour pass wearisomely, while 
her mother sat talking with the clergyman. The great 
black forest — stern as it showed itself tr those who 
brought the guilt and troubles of the world into its 
bosom — became the playmate of the lonely infant, as 
well as it knew how. Sombre as it was, it put on the 
kindest of its moods to welcome her. It offered her the 
partridge-berries, the growth of the preceding autumn, 
but ripening only in the spring, and now red as drops 
of blood upon the withered leaves. These Pearl gath- 
ered, and was pleased with their wild flavor. The 
small denizens of the wilderness hardly took pains to 
move out of her path. A partridge, indeed, with a 
brood of ten behind her, ran forward threateningly, but 
soon repented of her fierceness, and clucked to her 
young ones not to be afraid. A pigeon, alone on a low 
branch, allowed Pearl to come beneath, and uttered a 
sound as much of greeting as alarm. A squirrel, from 
the lofty depths of his domestic tree, chattered either in 
anger or merriment, — for a squirrel is such a choleric 
and humorous little personage, that it is hard to distin- 
guish between his moods, — so he chattered at the child, 
and flung down a nut upon her head. It was a last 
year’s nut, and already gnawed by his sharp tooth. A 
fox, startled from his sleep by her light footstep on 
the leaves, looked inquisitively at Pearl, as doubting 
whether it were better to steal off, or renew his nap on 
the same spot A wolf, it is said, — but here the tale 
has surely lapsed into the improbable, — came up, and 
smelt of Pearl’s robe, and offered his savage head to 


240 


THE SCARLET LETTER. 


be patted by her hand. The truth seems to be, how- 
ever, that the mother-forest, and these wild things which 
it nourished, all recognized a kindred wildness in the 
human child. 

And she was gentler here than in the grassy-margined 
streets of the settlement, or in her mother’s cottage. 
The flowers appeared to know it ; and one and another 
whispered as she passed, “ Adorn thyself with me, thou 
beautiful child, adorn thyself wi Ai me!” — and, to 
please them, Pearl gathered the violets, and anemones, 
and columbines, and some twigs of the freshest green, 
which the old trees held down before her eyes. With 
these she decorated her hair, and her young waist, and 
became a nymph-child, or an infant dryad, or whatever 
else was in closest sympathy with the antique wood. In 
such guise had Pearl adorned herself, when she heard 
her mother’s voice, and came slowly back. 

Slowly; fo- she saw the clergyman! 


THE CHILD AT THE BROOK-SIDE. 


241 


XIX. 

THE CHILD AT THE BROOK-SIDE. 

“ Thou wilt love her dearly,” repeated Hester Prynne, 
as she and the minister sat watching little Pearl. “Dost 
thou not think her beautiful'? And see with what 
natural skill she has made those simple flowers adorn 
her! Had she gathered pearls, and diamonds, and 
rubies, in the wood, they could not have become her 
better. She is a splendid child ! But I know whose 
brow she has ! ” 

“Dost thou know, Hester,” said Arthur Dimmesdale, 
with an unquiet smile, “that this dear child, tripping 
about always at thy side, hath caused me many an 
alarm 1 ? Methought — 0 Hester, what a thought is 
that, and how terrible to dread it ! — that my own 
features were partly repeated in her face, and so strik- 
ingly that the world might see them! But she is 
mostly thine ! ” 

“ .No, no ! Not mostly ! ” answered the mother, with a 
tender smile. “A little longer, and thou needest not to 
be afraid to trace whose child she is. But how strangely 
beautiful she looks, with those wild flowers in her hair! 
It is as if one of the fairies, whom we left in our dear 
old England, had decked her out to meet us. 

It was with a feeling which neither of them had ever 
before experienced, that they sat and watched Pearl’s 
slow advance. In her was visible the tie that united 
them. She had been offered to the world, these seven 
16 


242 


THE SCARLET IETTHfc. 


years past, as the living hieroglyphic, in which was 
revealed the secret they so darkly sought to hide, - — all 
written in this symbol, — all plainly manifest, — had 
there been a prophet or magician skilled to read the 
character of flame ! And Pearl was the oneness of their 
being. Be the foregone evil what it might, how could 
they doubt that their earthly lives and future destinies 
were conjoined, when they beheld at once the material 
union, and the spiritual idea, in whom they met, and 
were to dwell immortally together? Thoughts like 
these — and perhaps other thoughts, which they did not 
acknowledge or define — threw an awe about the child, 
as she came onward. 

“ Let her see nothing strange — no passion nor eager- 
ness — in thy way of accosting her,” whispered Hester. 
“ Our Pearl is a fitful and fantastic little elf, sometimes. 
Especially, she is seldom tolerant of emotion, when she 
does not fully comprehend the why and wherefore. But 
the child hath strong affections ! She loves me, and will 
love thee ! ” 

“ Thou canst not think,” said the minister, glancing 
aside at Hester Prynne, “ how my heart dreads this in- 
terview, and yearns for it ! But, in truth, as I already 
told thee, children are not readily won to be familiar 
with me. They will not climb my knee, nor prattle in 
my ear, nor answer to my smile ; but stand apart, and 
eye me strangely. Even little babes, when I take them 
in my arms, weep bitterly. Yet Pearl, twice in hel 
little lifetime, hath been kind to me ! The first time, — 
thou knowest it well ! The last was when thou ledst 
her with thee to the house of yonder stem old Gov- 
ernor. ’ 


I*R£ CHILD AT THE BROOK-SIDE. 


24 .'* 


4 And thou didst plead so bravely in her behalf and 
mine \ ” answered the mother. 44 1 remember it ; and so 
shall little Pearl. Fear nothing! She may be strange 
and shy at first, but will soon learn to love thee ! ” 

By this time Pearl had reached the margin of the 
brook, and stood on the further side, gazing silently at 
Hester and the clergyman, who still sat together on the 
mossy tree-trunk, waiting to receive her. Just where 
she had paused, the brook chanced to form a pool, so 
smooth and quiet that it reflected a perfect image of hei 
little figure, with all the brilliant picturesqueness of hei 
beauty, in its adornment of flowers and wreathed foliage, 
but more refined and spiritualized than the reality. 
This image, so nearly identical with the living 7V.rrl, 
seemed to communicate somewhat of its own sh& b r/y 
and intangible quality to the child herself. J vas 
strange, the way in which Pearl stood, looking so r ead* 
lastly at them through the dim medium of the //rest- 
gloom; herself, meanwhile, all glorified with a vay of 
sunshine, that was attracted thitherward as by a . ertain 
sympathy. In the brook beneath stood another c'uld,— 
another and the same, — with likewise its ray of golden 
light. Hester felt herself, in some indistinct anr. tanta- 
lizing manner, estranged from Pearl ; as if the '’hild, in 
her lonely ramble through the forest, had strayed out of 
the sphere in which she and her mother dwelt together, 
and was now vainly seeking to return to it. 

There was both truth and error in the impression ; the 
child and mother were estranged, but through Hester’s 
fault, not Pearl’s. Since the latter rambled from her 
side, another inmate had been admitted within the circle 
of the mother’s feelings, and so modified the aspect of 


THE SCARLET LETTEk. 


2U 

them all, that Pearl, the returning wanderer, could not 
find her wonted place, and hardly knew where she was. 

“ I have a strange fancy,” observed the sensitive min- 
ister, “that this brook is the boundary between two 
worlds, and that thou canst never meet thy Pearl again 
Or is she an elfish spirit, who, as the legends of our 
childhood taught us, is forbidden to cross a running 
stream ? Pray hasten her ; for this delay has already 
imparted a tremor to my nerves.” 

“ Come, dearest child ! ” said Hester, encouragingly, 
and stretching out both her arms. “ How slow thou 
art! When hast thou been so sluggish before now? 
Here is a friend of mine, who must be thy friend also. 
Thou wilt have twice as much love, henceforward, as 
thy mother alone could give thee ! Leap across the 
brook, and come to us. Thou canst leap like a young 
deer ! ” 

Pearl, without responding in any manner to these 
honey-sweet expressions, remained on the other side of 
the brook. Now she fixed her bright, wild eyes on her 
mother, now on the minister, and now included them 
both in the same glance ; as if to detect and explain to 
herself the relation which they bore to one another. 
For some unaccountable reason, as Arthur Dimmesdale 
felt the child’s eyes upon himself, his hand — with that 
gesture so habitual as to have become involuntary — 
stole over his heart. At length, assuming a singular 
air of authority, Pearl stretched out her hand, with 
the small forefinger extended, and pointing ev ; lently 
towards her mother’s breast. And beneath, in the mir- 
ror of the brook, there was the flower-girdled and sunn 
image of little PeaA. pointing her small forefinger too. 


THE imiT.L AT THE BROOK-SIDE. 


245 


“ Tnou strange cnnd, why dost thou not come to 
me ? ” exclaimed Hester. 

Pearl still pointed with her forefinger ; and a frown 
gathered on her brow; the more impressive from the 
childish, the almost baby-like aspect of the features that 
corn eyed it. As her mother still kept beckoning to her, 
and arraying her face in a holiday suit of unaccustomed 
smiles, the child stamped her foot with a yet more impe- 
rious look and gesture. In the brook, again, was the 
fantastic beauty of the image, with its reflected frown, its 
pointed finger, and imperious gesture, giving emphasis 
to the aspect of little Pearl. 

“ Hasten, Pearl ; or I shall be angry with thee ! ” 
cried Hester Prynne, who, however inured to such 
behavior on the elf-child’s part at other seasons, was 
naturally anxious for a more seemly deportment now. 
“ Leap across the brook, naughty child, and run hither ! 
Else I must come to thee ! ” 

But Pearl, not a whit startled at her mother’s threats, 
any more than mollified by her entreaties, now suddenly 
burst into a fit of passion, gesticulating violently, and 
throwing her small figure into the most extravagant con- 
tortions. She accompanied this wild outbreak with pierc- 
ing shrieks, which the woods reverberated on all sides ; 
so that, alone as she was in her childish and unreasona- 
ble wrath, it seemed as if a hidden multitude were lend- 
ing her their sympathy and encouragement. Seen in 
the brook, once more, was the shadowy wrath of Pearl’s 
image, crowned and girdled with flowers, but stamping 
its foot, wildly gesticulating, and, in the midst of ail, 
Btiil pointing its small forefinger at Hester’s bosom! 

“ 1 see what ails the child,” whispered Hester to tne 


246 


THE SCARLET LETTER. 


clergyman, and turning pale in spite of a strong effort 
to conceal her trouble and annoyance. “ Children will 
not abide any, the slightest, change in the accustomed 
aspect of things that are daily before their eyes. Pearl 
misses something which she has always seen me wear ! ” 

“ I pray you,” answered the minister, “ if thou hast 
any means of pacifying the child, do it forthwith ! Save 
it were the cankered wrath of an old witch, like Mistress 
Hibbins,” added he, attempting to smile, “ I know noth- 
ing that I would not sooner encounter than this passion 
in a child. In Pearl’s young beauty, as in the wrinkled 
witch, it has a preternatural effect. Pacify her, if thou 
lovest me ! ” 

Hester turned again towards Pearl, with a crimson 
blush upon her cheek, a conscious glance aside at the 
clergyman, and then a heavy sigh ; while, even before 
she had time to speak, the blush yielded to a deadly 
pallor. 

“ Pearl,” said she, sadly, “ look down at thy feet ! 
There ! — before thee ! — on the hither side of the 
brook ! ” 

The child turned her eyes to the point indicated ; and 
there lay the scarlet letter, so close upon the margin of 
the stream, that the gold embroidery was reflected in it. 

“ Bring it hither ! ” said Hester. 

“ Come thou and take it up ! ” answered Pearl. 

“Was ever such a child! ” observed Hester, aside to 
the minister. “ O, I have much to tell thee about her! 
But, in very truth, she is right as regards this hateful 
token. I must bear its torture yet a little longer, — 
only a few days longer, — until we shall have left this 
region, and look back hither as to a land which ws have 


THE CUI^D AT THE BROOK-SIDE. 


241 


dreamed of. The forest cannot hide it ! The mid-ocean 
shall take it from my hand, and swallow it up forever ! ” 

With these words, she advanced to the margin of the 
brook, took up the scarlet letter, and fastened it again 
into her bosom. Hopefully, but a moment ago, as 
Hester had spoken of drowning it in the deep sea, there 
was a sense of inevitable doom upon her, as she thus 
received back this deadly symbol from the hand of fate. 
She had flung it into infinite space ! — she had drawn 
an hour’s free breath ! — and here again was the scarlet 
misery, glittering on the old spot ! So it ever is, whether 
thus typified or no, that an evil deed invests itself with 
the character of doom. Hester next gathered up the 
heavy tresses of her hair, and confined them beneath her 
cap. As if there were a withering spell in the sad let- 
ter, her beauty, the warmth and richness of her woman- 
hood, departed, like fading sunshine; and a gray shadow 
seemed to fall across her. 

When the dreary change was wrought, she extended 
her hand to Pearl. 

“ Dost thou know thy mother now, child ? ” asked 
she, reproachfully, but with a subdued tone. “Wilt 
thou come across the brook, and own thy mother, now 
that she has her shame upon her, — now that she is 
sad ? ” 

“ Yes ; now I will ! ” answered the child, bounding 
across the brook, and clasping Hester in her arms. 
“ Now thou art my mother indeed ! And I am thy 
little Pearl ! ” 

In a mood of tenderness that was not usual with her, 
she drew down her mother’s head, and kissed her brow 
and both her cheeks. But then — by a kiuu of neces 


248 


THE SCARLET LETTER. 


sity that always impelled this child to alJoy whatever 
comfort she might chance to give with a throb of an* 
guish — Pearl put up her mouth, and kissed the scarlet 
letter too ! 

“ That was not kind ! ” said Hester. “ When thou 
hast shown me a little love, thou mockest me ! ” 

“Why doth the minister sit yonder ? ” asked Pearl. 

“ He waits to welcome thee,” replied her mother. 
“ Come thou, and entreat his blessing ! He loves thee., 
my little Pearl, and loves thy mother too. Wilt thou 
not love him ? Come ! he longs to greet thee ! ” 

“ Doth he love us ? ” said Pearl, looking up, with 
acute intelligence, into her mother’s face. “ Will he go 
back with us, hand in hand, we three together, into the 
town ? ” 

“ Not now, dear "child,” answered Hester. “ But in 
days to come he will walk hand in hand with us. We 
will have a home and fireside of our own ; and thou 
shalt sit upon his knee ; and he will teach thee many 
things, and love thee dearly. Thou wilt love him ; wilt 
thou not ? ” 

“ And will he always keep his hand over his heart ? ” 
inquired Pearl. 

“Foolish child, what a question is that!” exclaimed 
her mother. “ Come and ask his blessing ! ” 

But, whether influenced by the jealousy that seems 
instinctive with every petted child towards a dangerous 
rival, or from whatever caprice of her freakish nature, 
Pearl wouid show no favor to the clergyman. It was 
only by an exertion of force that her mother brought 
her up to him, hanging back, and manifesting her reluc* 
tance by odd grimaces ; of which, ever since her baby 


HIE CHILD AT THE BROOK-SIDE. 210 

hood, she had possessed a singular variety, and could 
transform her mobile physiognomy into a series of differ- 
ent aspects, with a new mischief in them, each and all. 
The minister — painfully embarrassed, but hoping that 
a ldss might prove a talisman to admit him intc the 
child’s kindlier regards — bent forward, and impressed 
one on her brow. Hereupon, Pearl broke away frcm 
her mother, and, running to the brook, stooped over it, 
and bathed her forehead, until the unwelcome kiss was 
quite washed off, and diffused through a long lapse of 
the gliding water. She then remained apart, silently 
watching Hester and the clergyman ; while they talked 
together, and made such arrangements as were sug- 
gested by their new position, and the purposes soon to 
be fulfilled. 

And now this fateful interview had come to a close. 
The dell was to be left a solitude among its dark, old 
trees, which, with their multitudinous tongues, would 
whisper long of what had passed there, and no mortal 
be the wiser. And the melancholy brook would add this 
other tale to the mystery with which its little heart was 
already overburdened, and whereof it still kept up a mur- 
muring babble, with not a whit more cheerfulness of tens 
than for ages heretofore. 


250 


THE SCARLET LETT S3.. 


XX. 

THE MINISTER IN A MAZE. 

As the minister departed, in advance of Hester Prynne 
and little Pearl, he threw a backward glance ; half ex- 
pecting that he should discover only some faintly traced 
features or outline of the mother and the child, slowly 
fading into the twilight of the woods. So great a vicis- 
situde in his life could not at once be received as real. 
But there was Hester, clad in her gray robe, still stand- 
ing beside the tree-trunk, which some blast had over- 
thrown a long antiquity ago, and which time had ever 
since been covering with moss, so that these two fated 
ones, with earth’s heaviest burden on them, might there 
sit down together, and find a single hour’s rest and 
solace. And there was Pearl, too, lightly dancing from 
the margin of the brook, — now that the intrusive third 
person was gone, — and taking her old place by hei 
mother’s side. So the minister had not fallen asleep, 
and dreamed ! 

In order to free his mind from this indistinctness and 
duplicity of impression, which vexed it with a strange 
disquietude, he recalled and more thoroughly defined 
the plans which Hester and himself had sketched foi 
their departure. It had been determined between them, 
that the Old World, with its crowds and cities, offered 
them a more eligible shelter and concealment than the 
wilds of New England, or all America, with its alter- 
natives of an Indian wigwam, or the few settlements of 


THE MINISTER IN A MAZE. 


251 


Europeans, scattered thinly along the seaboard. Not 
to speak of the clergyman’s health, so inadequate to sus- 
tain the hardships of a forest life, his native gifts, his 
culture, and his entire development, would secure him a 
home only in the midst of civilization and refinement ; 
the higher the state, the more delicately adapted to it 
the man. In furtherance of this choice, it so happened 
that a ship lay in the harbor ; one of those questionable 
cruisers, frequent at that day, which, without being ab- 
solutely outlaws of the deep, yet roamed over its surface 
with a remarkable irresponsibility of character. This 
vessel had recently arrived from the Spanish Main, and, 
within three days’ time, would sail for Bristol. Hester 
Prynne — whose vocation, as a self-enlisted Sister of 
Charity, had brought her acquainted with the captain 
and crew — could take upon herself to secure the pas- 
sage of two individuals and a child, with all the secrecy 
which circumstances rendered more than desirable. 

The minister had inquired of Hester, with no little 
interest, the precise time at which the vessel might be 
expected to depart. It would probably be on the fourth 
day from the present. “ That is most fortunate ! ” he 
had then said to himself. Now, why the Reverend Mr. 
Dimmesdale considered it so very fortunate, we hesitate 
to reveal. Nevertheless, — to hold nothing back from 
the reader, — it was because, on the third day from the 
present, he was to preach the Election Sermon; and, as 
such an occasion formed an honorable epoch in the life 
of a New England clergyman, he could not have chanced 
upon a more suitable mode and time of terminating his 
professional career. “ At least, they shall say ol me,” 
thought this exemplary man, “ that I leave no public 


252 


THE SCARLET LETTER. 


duty unperformed, nor ill performed ! ” Sad, indeed, 
that an introspection so profound and acute as this poor 
minicter’s should be so miserably deceived ! We have 
had, and may still have, worse things to tell of him; but 
none, we apprehend, so pitiably weak ; no evidence, at 
once so slight and irrefragable, of a subtle disease, that 
had long since begun to eat into the real substance of 
his character. No man, for any considerable period, can 
wear one face to himself, and another to the multitude, 
without finally getting bewildered as to which may be 
the true. 

The excitement of Mr. Dimmesdale’s feelings, as he 
returned from his interview with Hester, lent him unac- 
customed physical energy, and hurried him townward at 
h rapid pace. The pathway among the woods seemed 
wilder, morp uncouth with its rude natural obstacles, and 
less trodden by the foot of man, than he remembered it 
on his outward journey. But he leaped across the plashy 
places, thrust himself through the clinging underbrush, 
climbed the ascent, plunged into the hollow, and over- 
came, in short, all the difficulties of the track, with an 
unweariable activity that astonished him. He could not 
but recall how feebly, and with what frequent pauses foi 
breath, he had toiled over the same ground, only two 
days before. As he drew near the town, he took an 
impression of change from the series of familiar objects 
that presented themselves. It seemed not yesterday, not 
one, nor two, but many days, or even years ago, since 
he had quitted them. There, indeed, was each former 
trace of the street, as he remembered it, and all the pecu- 
liarities of the houses, with the due multitude of gable- 
peaks, and a weather-cock at every point where his 


THE MINISTER IN A MAZE. 


253 


memory suggested one. Not tlie less, however, came 
this importunately obtrusive sense of change. The same 
was true as regarded the acquaintances whom he met, 
and all the well-known shapes of human life, about the 
little town. They looked neither older nor jounger 
now ; the beards of the aged were no whiter, nor could 
the creeping babe of yesterday walk on his feet to-day ; 
it was impossible to describe in what respect they differed 
from the individuals on whom he had so recently be- 
stowed a parting glance ; and yet the minister’s deepest 
sense seemed to inform him of their mutability. A sim- 
ilar impression struck him most remarkably, as he passed 
under the walls of his own church. The edifice had so 
very strange, and yet so familiar, an aspect, that Mr. 
Dimmesdale’s mind vibrated between two ideas ; either 
that he had seen it only in a dream hitherto, or that he 
was merely dreaming about it now. 

This phenomenon, in the various shapes which it as- 
sumed, indicated no external change, but so sudden and 
important a change in the spectator of the familiar scene, 
that the intervening space of a single day had operated 
on his consciousness like the lapse of years. The min- 
ister’s own will, and Hester’s will, and the fate that grew 
between them, had wrought this transformation. . It was 
the same town as heretofore; but the same minister 
returned not from the forest. He might have said to the 
friends who greeted him, — “lam not the man for whom 
you take me ! I left him yonder in the forest, withdrawn 
into a secret deli, by a mossy tree-trunk, and near a mel- 
ancholy brook ! Go, seek your minister, and see if his 
emaciated figure, his thin cheek, his white, heavy, pain- 
wrinkled brow, be not flung down there, like a cast-off 


254 


THE SCARLET LETTER 


garment!” His friends, no doubt, would still have in« 
sisted with him, — “ Thou art thyself the man ! ” — but 
the error would have been their own, not his. 

Before Mr. Dimmesdale reached home, his inner man 
gave him other evidences of a revolution in the sphere 
of thought and feeling. In truth, nothing short of a total 
change of dynasty and moral code, in that interior king- 
dom, was adequate to account for the impulses now com- 
municated to the unfortunate and startled minister. At 
every step he was incited to do some strange, wild, 
wicked thing or other, with a sense that it would be at 
once involuntary and intentional ; in spite of himself, yet 
growing out of a profounder self than that which opposed 
the impulse. For instance, he met one of his own dea- 
cons. The good old man addressed him with the pater- 
nal affection and patriarchal privilege, which his venera- 
ble age, his upright and holy character, and his station 
in the Churcii, entitled him to use ; and, conjoined with 
this, the deep, almost worshipping respect, which the 
minister’s professional and private claims alike demanded. 
Never was there a more beautiful example of how the 
majesty of age and wisdom may comport with the obei- 
sance and respect enjoined upon it, as from a lower social 
rank, and inferior order of endowment, towards a higher. 
Now, during a conversation of some two or three moments 
between the Reverend Mr. Dimmesdale and this excellent 
and hoary-bearded deacon, it was only by the most care- 
ful self-control that the former could refrain from uttering 
certain blasphemous suggestions that rose into his mind, 
respecting the communion-supptr. He absolutely trem 
bled and turned pale as ashes, lest his tongue should 
wag itself, in utterance of these horrible matters, and 


THE MINISTER IN A MAZE. 


255 


plead his ovvn consent for so doing, without his having 
fairly given it. And, even with this terror in his heart 
he could hardly avoid laughing, to imagine how the sanc- 
tified old patriarchal deacon would have been petrified 
by his minister’s impiety ! 

Again, another incident of the same nature. Hurry- 
ing along the street, the Reverend Mr. Dimmesdale 
encountered the eldest female member of his church ; a 
most pious and exemplary old dame ; poor, widowed, 
lonely, and with a heart as full of reminiscences about 
her dead husband and children, and her dead friends of 
long ago, as a burial-ground is full of storied grave- 
stones. Yet all this, which would else have been such 
heavy sorrow, was made almost a solemn joy to her 
devout old soul, by religious consolations and the truths 
of Scripture, wherewith she had fed herself continually 
for more than thirty years. And, since Mr. Dimmesdale 
had taken her in charge, the good grandam’s chief earthly 
comfort — which, unless it had been likewise a heavenly 
comfort, could have been none at all — was to meet her 
pastor, whether casually, or of set purpose, and be re- 
freshed with a word of warm, fragrant, heaven-breathing 
Gospel truth, from his beloved lips, into her dulled, but 
rapturously attentive ear. But, on this occasion, up to 
the moment of putting his lips to the old woman’s ear, 
Mr. Dimmesdale, as the great enemy of souls would 
ha ire it, could recall no text of Scripture, nor aught else, 
except a brief, pithy, and, as it then appeared to him, 
unanswerable argument against the immortality of the 
auman soul. The instilment thereof into her mind 
would probably have caused this aged sister to drop 
down dead, at once, as by the effect of an intensely pci 


2!j6 the SCARLET LETTER. 

sonous infusion. What he really did whisper, the mils 
ister could never afterwards recollect There was, per- 
haps, a fortunate disorder in his utterance, which failea 
to impart any distinct idea to the good widow’s compre- 
hension, or which Providence interpreted after a method 
of its own. Assuredly, as the minister looked back, he 
beheld an expression of divine gratitude and ecstasy that 
seemed like the shine of the celestial city on her face, so 
wrinkled and ashy pale. 

Again, a third instance. After parting from the old 
church-member, he met the youngest sister of them all. 
It was a maiden newly won — and won by the Reverend 
Mr. Dimmesdale’s own sermon, on the Sabbath after his 
vigil — to barter the transitory pleasures of the world for 
the heavenly hope, that was to assume brighter substance 
as life grew dark around her, and which w r ould gild the 
utter gloom with final glory. She was fair and pure as 
a lily that had bloomed in Paradise. The minister knew 
well that he was himself enshrined within the stainless 
sanctity of her heart, which hung its snowy curtains 
about his image, imparting to religion the warmth of 
love, and to love a religious purity. Satan, that after- 
noon, had surely led the poor young girl away from her 
mother’s side, and thrown her into the pathway of this 
sorely tempted, or — shall we not rather say ? — this lost 
and desperate man. As she drew nigh, the arch-fiend 
whispered him to condense into small compass and drop 
into her tender bosom a germ of evil that would be sure 
to blossom darkly soon, and bear black fruit betimes 
Such was his sense of power over tfiis virgin soul, trust- 
ing him as she did, that the minister felt potent to blight 
all the field of innocence with but one wicked look, and 


THE MINISTER IN A MAZE. if£l 

develop all its opposite with but p. word. So — with a 
mightier struggle th am he had yet sustained — he held 
his Geneva cloak before his face, and hurried onward, 
making no sign of recognition, and leaving the young 
sister to digest his rudeness as she might. She ran- 
sacked her conscience, — which was full of harmless lit- 
tl 3 matters, like her pocket or her work-bag, — and took 
herself to task, poor thing ! for a thousand imaginary 
faults ; and went about her household duties with swol- 
len eyelids the next morning. 

Before the minister had time to celebrate his victory 
aver this last temptation, he was conscious of another 
impulse, more ludicrous, and almost as horrible. It was, 
— we blush to tell it, — it was to stop short in the road, 
and teach some very wicked words to a knot of little 
Puritan children who were playing there, and had but 
just begun to talk. Denying himself this freak, as 
unwortny of his cloth, he met a drunken seaman, one of 
the ship’s crew from the Spanish Main. And, here, 
since he had so valiantly forborne all other wickedness, 
poor Mr. Dimmesdale longed, at least, to shake hands 
with the tarry blackguard, and recreate himself with a 
few improper jests, such as dissolute sailors so abound 
with, and a volley of good, round solid, satisfactory, and 
heaven-defying oaths ! It was not so much a better 
principle as partly his natural good taste, and still more 
his buckramed habit of clerical decorum, that carried him 
safely through the latter crisis. 

“What is it that haunts and tempts me thus?” cried 
the minister to himself, at length, pausing in the street, 
and striking his hand against his forehead. “Am l 
mad? or am I given over utterly to the fiend’ Did 1 
17 


THE. SCARLET LETTER. 


258 s 

make a contract With ,hjm in the forest, and sign it with 
my blood ? And does he now summon me to its fulfil* 
ment, by suggesting the performance of every wickedness 
which his most foul imagination can conceive ? ” 

At the moment when the Reverend Mr. Dimmesdaie 
thus communed with himself, and struck hfs forehead 
with his hand, old Mistress Hibbins, the reputed witch- 
lady, is said to have been passing by. She made a 
very grand appearance; having on a high head-dress, 
a rich gown of velvet, and a ruff done up with the 
famous yellow starch, of which Ann Turner, her especial 
friend, had taught her the secret, before this last good 
lady had been hanged for Sir Thomas Overbury ’s 
murder. Whether the witch had read the minister’s 
thoughts, or no, she came to a full stop, looked shrewdly 
into his face, smiled craftily, and — though little given 
to converse with clergymen — began a conversation. 

“ So, reverend Sir, you have made a visit into the 
forest,” observed the witch-lady, nodding her high head- 
dress at him.- “ The next time, I pray you to allow me 
only a fair warning, and I shall be proud to bear you 
company. Without taking overmuch upon myself, my 
good word will go far towards gaining any strange gentle- 
man a fair reception from yonder potentate you wot of! ’ 
“I profess, madam,” answered the clergyman, with 
a grave obeisance, such as the lady’s rank demanded, 
and his own good-breeding made imperative, — “I pro- 
fess, on my conscience and character, that I am utterly 
bewildered as touching the purport of your words ! j 
went not into the forest to seek a potentate ; neither do 
I, at any future time, design a visit thither, with a view 
to gaining the favor of such personage. My one suffi 


THE MINISTER IN A MAZE. 


259 


clent object was to greet that pious friend of mine, the 
Apostle Eliot, and rejoice with him over the many 
precious souls he hath won from heathendom ! ” 

“ Ha, ha, ha ! ” cackled the old witch-lady, still nod- 
ding her high head-dress at the minister. “ Well, well, 
we must needs talk thus in the daytime ! You carry 
it off lik*» an old hand! But at midnight, and in the 
forest, we shall have other talk together ! ” 

She passed on with her aged stateliness, but often 
turning back her head and smiling at him, like one 
willing to recognize a secret intimacy of connection. 

“ Have I then sold myself,” thought the minister, “ to 
the fiend whom, if men say true, this yellow-starched 
and velveted old hag has chosen for her prince and 
master ! ” 

The wretched minister! He had made a bargain 
very like it! Tempted by a dream of happiness, he 
had yielded himself, with deliberate choice, as he had 
never done before, to what he knew was deadly sin. 
And the infectious poison of that sin had been thus 
rapidly diffused throughout his moral system. It had 
stupefied all blessed impulses, and awakened into vivid 
life the whole brotherhood of bad ones. Scorn, bitter- 
ness, unprovoked malignity, gratuitous desire of ill, 
ridicule of whatever was good and holy, all awoke, to 
tempt, even while they frightened him. And his en- 
counter with old Mistress Hibbins, if it were a real 
incident, did but show his sympathy and fellowship with 
wicked mortals, and the world of perverted spirits. 

He had, by this time, reached his dwelling, on the 
edge of the burial-ground, and, hastening up the stairs, 
took refuge in his study. The minister was glad to 


w60 


THE SCARLET LETTER. 


have reached this shelter, without first betraying him- 
self to the world by any of those strange and wicked 
eccentricities to which he had been continually impelled 
while passing through the streets. He entered the 
accustomed room, and looked around him on its books, 
its windows, its fireplace, and the tapestried comfort of 
the walls, with the same perception of strangeness that 
had haunted him throughout his walk from the forest- 
dell into the town, and thitherward. Here he had 
studied and written ; here, gone through fast and vigil, 
md come forth half alive ; here, striven to pray ; here, 
borne a hundred thousand agonies! There was the 
Bible, in its rich old Hebrew, with Moses and the Proph- 
ets speaking to him, and God’s voice through all! 
There, on the table, with the inky pen beside it, was an 
unfinished sermon, with a sentence broken in the midst, 
where his thoughts had ceased to gush out upon the 
page, two days before. He knew that it was himself, 
the thin and white-cheeked minister, who had done and 
suffered these things, and written thus far into the Elec- 
tion Sermon ! But he seemed to stand apart, and eye 
this former self with scornful, pitying, but half-envious 
curiosity. That self was gone. Another man had re- 
turned out of the forest ; a wiser one ; with a knowledge 
of hidden mysteries which the simplicity of the former 
never could have reached. A bitter kind of knowledge 
that ! 

While occupied with these reflections, a knock came 
at the door of the study, and the minister said, “ Come 
in!” — not wholly devoid of an idea that he might 
behold an evil spirit. And so he did ! It was old Roger 
Chillingworlh that entered. The minister stood, white 


THE MINISTER IN A MAZE. 


261 


and uDecchless, with one hand on the Hebrew Scriptures, 
and the other spread upon his breast. 

“Welcome home, reverend Sir,” said the physician. 
“ And how found you that godly man, the Apostle Eliot 1 
But methinks, dear Sir, you look pale ; as if the travel 
through the wilderness had been too sore for you. Will 
not my aid be requisite to put you in heart and strength 
to preach your Election Sermon ? ” 

“ Nay, I think not so,” rejoined the Reverend Mr. 
Dimmesdale. “ My journey, and the sight of the holy 
Apostle yonder, and the free air which I have breathed, 
have done me good, after so long confinement in my 
study. I think to need no more of your drugs, my kind 
physician, good though they he, and administered by a 
friendly hand.” 

All this time, Roger Chillingworth was looking at the 
minister with the grave and intent regard of a physician 
towards his patient. But, in spite of this outward show, 
the latter was almost convinced of the old man’s know?* 
edge, or, at least, his confident suspicion, with respect to 
his own interview with Hester Prynne. The physician 
knew then, that, in the minister’s regard, he was no 
longer a trusted friend, but his bitterest enemy. So 
much being known, it would appear natural that a part 
of it should be expressed. It is singular, however, how 
long a time often passes before words embody things ; 
and with what security two persons, who choose to avoid 
a certain subject, may approach its very verge, and retire 
without disturbing it. Thus, the minister felt no ap- 
prehension that Roger Chillingworth would touch, in 
express words, upon the real position which they sus 


262 


THE SCARLET LETTER. 


tained towards one another. Yet did the physician, lr 
His dark way, creep frightfully near the secret. 

“Were it not better,” said he, “that you use my 
poor skill to-night? Verily, dear Sir, we must take 
pains to make you strong and vigorous for this occasion 
of the Election discourse. The people look for great 
things from you; apprehending that another year may 
come about, and find their pastor gone.” 

“ Yea, to another world,” replied the minister, with 
pious resignation. “Heaven grant it be a better one; 
for, in good sooth, I hardly think to tarry with my flock 
through the flitting seasons of another year! But, 
touching your medicine, kind Sir, in my present frame 
of body, I need it not.” 

“ I joy to hear it,” answered the physician. “ It may 
be that my remedies, so long administered in vain, begin 
now to take due effect. Happy man were I, and well 
deserving of New England’s gratitude, could I achieve 
this cure ! ” 

“ I thank you from my heart, most watchful friend,” 
said the Reverend Mr. Dimmesdale, with a solemn 
smile. “ I thank you, and tan but requite your good 
deeds with my prayers.” 

“ A good man’s prayers are golden recompense ! r 
rejoined old Roger Chillingworth, as he took his leave. 
“ Yea, they are the current gold coin of the New Jeru- 
salem, with the King’s own mint-mark on them ! ” 

Left alone, the minister summoned a servant of the 
house, and requested food, which, being set before him 
he ate with ravenous appetite. Then, flinging the 
already written pages of the Election Sermon into the 
fire, he forthwith began another, which he wrote with 


THE MINISTER IN A MAZE. Sfifl 

such an impulsive flow of thought and emotion, that 
he fancied himself inspired; and only wondered that 
Heaven should see fit to transmit the grand and solemn 
music of its oracles through so foul an organ-pipe as he. 
However, leaving that mystery to solve itself, or go un- 
solved forever, he drove his task onward, with earnest 
haste and ecstasy. Thus the night fled away, as if it 
were a winged steed, and he careering on it; morning 
came, and peeped, blushing, through the curtains ; and 
at last sunrise threw a golden beam into the study and 
laid it right across the minister’s bedazzled eyes. There 
he was, with the pen still between his fingers, and a vast, 
immeasuiable tract of written space behind him l 


264 


THE SCARLET LETTER 


XXI. 

THE NEW ENGLAND HOLIDAY. 

Betimes in the morning of the day on which the new 
Governor was to receive his office at the hands of the 
people, Hester Prynne and little Pearl came into the 
market-place. It was already thronged with the crafts- 
men and other plebeian inhabitants of the town, in con- 
siderable numbers ; among whom, likewise, were many 
rough figures, whose attire of deer-skins marked them 
as belonging to some of the forest settlements, which 
surrounded the little metropolis of the colony. 

On this public holiday, as on all other occasions, for 
seven years past, Hester was clad in a garment of 
coarse gray cloth. Not more by its hue than by some 
indescribable peculiarity in its fashion, it had the effect 
of making her fade personally out of sight and outline ; 
while, again, the scarlet letter brought her back from 
this twilight indistinctness, and revealed her under the 
moral aspect of its own illumination. Her face, so long 
familiar to the townspeople, showed the marble quietude 
which they were accustomed to behold there. It was 
like a mask ; or, rather, like the frozen calmness of a 
dead woman’s features ; owing this dreary resemblance 
to the fact that Hester was actually dead, in respect to 
any claim of sympathy, and had departed out of the 
world with which she still seemed to mingle. 

It might be, on this one day, that there was an ex 
pression unseen before, nor, indeed, vivid enough to 


THE NEW ENGLAND HOLIDAY. 


265 


be detected now ; unless some preternaturally gifted 
observer should have first read the heart, and have 
afterwards sought a corresponding development in the 
countenance and mien. Such a spiritual seer might 
have conceived, that, after sustaining the gaze of the 
multitude through seven miserable years as a necessity, 
a penance, and something which it was a stem religion 
to endure, she now, for one last time more, encountered 
it freely and voluntarily, in order to convert what had so 
long been agony into a kind of triumph. “ Look your 
last on the scarlet letter and its wearer ! ” — the people’s 
victim and life-long bond-slave, as they fancied her, 
might say to them. “Yet a little while, and she will 
be beyond your reach ! A few hours longer, and the 
deep, mysterious ocean will quench and hide forever the 
symbol which ye have caused to bum upon her bosom ! ” 
Nor were it an inconsistency too improbable to be as- 
signed to human nature, should we suppose a feeling of 
regret in Hester’s mind, at the moment when she was 
about to win her freedom from the pain which had been 
thus deeply incorporated with her being. Might there 
not be an irresistible desire to quaff a last, long, breath- 
less draught of the cup of wormwood and aloes, with 
which nearly all her years of womanhood had been per- 
petually flavored ? The wine of life, henceforth to be 
presented to her lips, must be indeed rich, delicious, and 
exhilarating, in its chased and golden beaker; or else 
leave an inevitable and weary languor, after the lees of 
bitterness wherewith she had beer dmgged, as with a 
cordial of intensest potency. 

Pearl was decked out with airy gayety. It would 
Dave been >mpossible to guess that this bright and 


200 


THE SCARLET LETTER. 


sunny apparition owed its existence to the shu|Ki of 
gloomy gray ; or that a fancy, at once so gorgeous and 
so delicate as must have been requisite to contrive the 
child’s apparel, was the same that had achieved a task 
perhaps more difficult, in imparting so distinct a peculiar- 
ity to Hester’s simple robe. The dress, so proper was it 
to little Pearl, seemed an effluence, or inevitable devel- 
opment and outward manifestation of her character, no 
more to be separated from her than the many hued brb 
liancy from a butterfly’s wing, or the painted glory from 
the leaf of a bright flower. As with these, so with the 
child ; her garb was all of one idea with her nature. On 
this eventful day, moreover, there was a certain singular 
inquietude and excitement in her mood, resembling 
nothing so much as the shimmer of a diamond, that 
sparkles and flashes with the varied throbbings of the 
breast on which it is displayed. Children have always 
a sympathy in the agitations of those connected with 
them ; always, especially, a sense of any trouble or im- 
pending revolution, of whatever kind, in domestic cir- 
cumstances ; and therefore Pearl, who was the gem on 
her mother’s unquiet bosom, betrayed, by the very dance 
of her spirits, the emotions whirh none could detect in 
the marble passiveness of Hester s brow. 

This effervescence made her flit with a birdlike move- 
ment, rather than walk by her mother’s side. She broke 
continually into shouts of a wild, inarticulate, and some- 
times piercing music. When they reached the market- 
place, s_ie became still more restless, on perceiving the 
stir and bustle that enlivened the spot; for it was 
usually more like the broad and lonesome green before 


THE NEW ENGLAND HOLIDAY. 


261 


k village meeting-house, than the centre of a town s 
business. 

“ Why, what is this, mother ? ” cried she. “ Where- 
fore have all the people left their work to-day ? Is it a 
play-day for the whole world ? See, there is the black- 
smith ! He has washed his sooty face, and put on his 
Sabbath-day clothes, and looks as if he would gladly be 
merry, if any kind body would only teach him how ! 
And there is Master Brackett, the old jailer, nodding 
and smiling at me. Why does he do so, mother ? ” 

“ He remembers thee a little babe, my child,” an- 
swered Hester. 

“ He should not nod and smile at me, for all that, — 
the black, grim, ugly-eyed old man ! ” said Pearl. “ He 
may nod at thee, if he will ; for thou art clad in gray, 
and wearest the scarlet letter. But see, mother, how 
many faces of strange people, and Indians among them, 
and sailors ! What have they all come to do, here in 
the market-place ? ” 

“ They wait to see the procession pass,” said Hester. 
“ For the Governor and the magistrates are to go by, and 
the ministers, and all the great people and good people, 
with the music and the soldiers marching before them.” 

“And will the minister be there ? ” asked Pearl. “And 
will he hold out both his hands to me, as when thou ledst 
me to him from the brook-side ? ” 

“ He will be there, child,” answered her mother. 
“ But he will not greet thee to-day ; nor must thou 
greet him.” 

“ What a strange, sad man is he ! ” said the child, as 
if speaking partly to herself. “ In the dark night-time 
be calls us to him, and holds thy hand and mine, aj 


THE SCARLET LETTER. 


263 


when we stood with him on the scaffold yonder Ana 
in the deep forest, where only the old trees can heai,and 
the strip of sky see it, he talks with thee, sitting on a 
heap of moss ! And he kisses my forehead, too, so that 
the little brook would hardly wash it off! But here, in 
the sunny day, and among all the people, he knows us 
not ; nor must we know him ! A strange, sad man is 
he, with his hand always over his heart ! ” 

“ Be quiet, Pearl ! Thou understandest not these 
things,” said her mother. “ Think not now of the min- 
ister, but look about thee, and see how cheery is every- 
body’s face to-day. The children have come from their 
schools, and the grown people from their workshops and 
their fields, on purpose to be happy. For, to-day, a new 
man is beginning to rule over them ; and so — as has 
been the custom of mankind ever since a nation was first 
gathered — they make merry and rejoice ; as if a good 
and golden year were at length to pass over the poor old 
world!” 

It was as Hester said, in regard to the unwonted jol- 
lity that brightened the faces of the people. Into this 
festal season of the year — as it already was, and con- 
tinued to be during the greater part of two centuries — 
the Puritans compressed whatever mirth and public jo/ 
they deemed allowable to human infirmity ; thereby so 
far dispelling the customary cloud, that, for the space of 
i single holiday, they appeared scarcely more grave 
than most other communities at a period of general 
affliction. 

But we perhaps exaggerate the gray or sable tinge, 
which undoubtedly characterized the mood and manners 
of the age. The persons now in the market-place of 


THE NEW ENGLAND HOLIDAY. 


acy 


Bostou had not been bom to an inheritance of Puritanic 
gloom. They were native Englishmen, whose fathers 
had lived in the sunny richness of the Elizabethan epoch ; 
a time when the life of England, viewed as one great 
mass, would appear to have been as stately magnificent, 
and joyous, as the world has ever witnessed. Had they 
followed their hereditary taste, the New England settlers 
would have illustrated all events of public importance by 
bonfires, banquets, pageantries, and processions. Nor 
would it have been impracticable, in the observance of 
majestic ceremonies, to combine mirthful recreation with 
solemnity, and give, as it were, a grotesque and brilliant 
embroidery to the great robe of state, which a nation, at 
such festivals, puts on. There was some shadow of an 
attempt of this kind in the mode of celebrating the day 
on which the political year of the colony commenced. 
The dim reflection of a remembered splendor, a colorless 
and manifold diluted repetition of what they had beheld 
in proud old London, — we will not say at a royal coro- 
nation, but at a Lord Mayor’s show, — might be traced 
in the customs which our forefathers instituted, with 
reference to the annual installation of magistrates. The 
fathers and founders of the commonwealth — the states- 
man, the priest, and the soldier — deemed it a duty then 
to assume the outward state and majesty, which, in 
accordance with antique style, was looked upon as the 
proper garb of public or social eminence. All came 
forth, to move in procession before the people’s eye, and 
thus impart a needed dignity to the simple framework of 
a government so newly constructed. 

Then, too, the people were countenanced, if not 
encouraged in relaxing the severe and close application 


270 


THE SCARLET LETTER. 


to their various modes of rugged industry, whu,h, at all 
other times, seemed of the same piece and material with 
their religion. Here, it is true, were none of the appli* 
ances which popular merriment would so readily have 
found in the England of Elizabeth's time, or that of 
James; — no rude shows of a theatrical kind; no min- 
strel, with his harp and legendary ballad, nor gleeman, 
with an ape dancing to his music ; no juggler, with his 
tricks of mimic witchcraft ; no Merry Andrew, to stir up 
the multitude with jests, perhaps hundreds of years old, 
but still effective, by their appeals to the very broadest 
sources of mirthful sympathy. All such professors of 
the several brandies of jocularity would have been 
sternly repressed, not only by the rigid discipline of law, 
but by the general sentiment which gives law its vitality. 
Not the less, however, the great, honest face of the peo- 
ple smiled, grimly, perhaps, but widely too. Nor were 
sports wanting, such as the colonists had witnessed, and 
shared in, long ago, at the country fairs and on the 
village-greens of England ; and which it was thought 
well to keep alive on this new soil, for the sake of the 
courage and manliness that were essential in them. 
Wrestling-matches, in the different fashions of Cornwall 
and Devonshire, were seen here and there about the 
market-place ; in one corner, there was a friendly bout 
at quarterstaff; and — what attracted most interest of 
all — on the platform of the pillory, already so noted in 
our pages, two masters of defence were commencing an 
exhibition with the buckler and broadsword. But, much 
to the disappointment of the crowd, this latter business 
was broken off by the interposition of the town beadle, 
wno had no idea of permitting the majesty of the law to 


THE NEW ENGLAND HOLIDAY 


271 


oe violated by such an abuse of one of its consecrated 
places. 

It may not be too much to affirm, on the whole, (the 
people being then in the first stages of joyless deport- 
ment, and the offspring of sires who had known how 
to be merry, in their day,) that they would compare 
favorably, in point of holiday keeping, with their de- 
scendants, even at so long an interval as ourselves. 
Their immediate posterity, the generation next to the 
early emigrants, wore the blackest shade of Puritan- 
ism, and so darkened the national visage with it, that 
nil the subsequent years have not sufficed to clear it 
up. We have yet to learn again the forgotten art of 
gayety. 

The picture of human life in the market-place, though 
its general tint was the sad gray, brown, or black of the 
English emigrants, was yet enlivened by some diversity 
of hue. A party of Indians — in their savage finery of 
curiously embroidered deer-skin robes, wampum-belts, 
red and yellow ochre, and feathers, and armed with the 
bow and arrow and stone-headed spear — stood apart, 
with countenances of inflexible gravity, beyond what 
even the Puntan aspect could attain. Nor, wild as were 
these painted barbarians, were they the wildest feature 
of the scene. This distinction could more justly be 
claimed by some mariners, — a part of the crew of the 
vessel from the Spanish Main, — who had come ashore 
to see trie humors of Election Day. They were rough- 
looking desperadoes, with sun-blackened faces, and an 
immensity of beard ; their wide, short trousers were con- 
fined about the waist by belts, often clasped with a rough 
plat* of gold, and sustaining always a long knife, and, 


272 


THE SCARLET LETTER. 


in some instances, a sword. From beneath their broad- 
brimmed hats of palm-leaf, gleamed eyes which, even 
good nature and merriment, had a kind of animal 
ferocity. They transgressed, without fear or scruple, the 
rules of behavior that were binding on all ethers ; 
smoking tobacco under the beadle’s very nose, although 
each whiff would have cost a townsman a shilling ; and 
quaffing, at their pleasure, draughts of wine or aqua-vitae 
from pocket-flasks, which they freely tendered to the 
gaping crowd around them. It remarkably character- 
ized the incomplete morality of the age, rigid as we call 
it, that a license was allowed the seafaring class, not 
merely for their freaks on shore, but for far more desper- 
ate deeds on their proper element. The sailor of that 
day would go near to be arraigned as a pirate in our 
own. There could be little doubt, for instance, that this 
very ship’s crew, though no unfavorable specimens of the 
nautical brotherhood, had been guilty, as we should 
phrase it, of depredations on the Spanish commerce, 
such as would have perilled all their necks in a modern 
court of justice. 

But the sea, in those old times, heaved, swelled and 
foamed, very much at its own will, or subject only to the 
tempestuous wind, with hardly any attempts at regula 
tion by human law. The buccaneer on the wave might 
relinquish his calling, and become at once, if he chose, a 
man of probity and piety on land ; nor, even in the full 
career of his reckless life, was he regarded as a person- 
age with whom it was disreputable to traffic, or casually 
associate. Thus, the Puritan elders, in their black 
cloaks, starched bands, and steeple-crowned hats, srnilea 
not unbenignautly at the clamor and rude deport- 


THE NEW ENGLAND HOLIDAY - , 


273 


ment of these jolly seafaring men ; and it excited neither 
surprise nor animadversion, when so reputable a citizen 
as old Roger Chillingworth, the physician, was seen to 
enter the market-place, in close and familiar talk with 
the commander of the questionable vessel. 

The latter was by far the most showy and gallant 
figure, so far as apparel went, anywhere to be seen 
among the multitude. He wore a profusion of ribbons 
on his garment, and gold lace on his hat, which was 
also encircled by a gold chain, and surmounted with a 
feather. There was a sword at his side, and a sword-cut 
on his forehead, which, by the arrangement of his hair, 
he seemed anxious rather to display than hide. A 
landsman could hardly have worn this garb and shown 
this face, and worn and shown them both with such a 
galliard air, without undergoing stern question before 
a magistrate, and probably incurring fine or impris- 
onment, or perhaps an exhibition in the stocks. As 
regarded the shipmaster, however, all was looked upon 
as pertaining to the character, as to a fish his glistening 
scales. 

After parting from the physician, the commander of 
the Bristol ship strolled idly through the market-place ; 
until, happening to approach the spot where Hester 
Prynne was standing, he appeared to recognize, and did 
not hesitate to address her. As was usually the case 
wherever Hester stood, a small vacant area — a sort of 
magic circle — had formed itself about her, into which 
though the people were elbowing one another at a little 
distance, none ventured, or felt disposed to intrude. If 
was a forcible type of the moral solitude m which til* 
scarlet letter enveloped its fated wearer ; partly by hei 
IS 


274 


THE SCARLET LETTER. 


own reserve, and partly by the instinctive, though no 
longer so unkindly, withdrawal of her fellow-creatures. 
Now, if never before, it answered a good purpose, by 
enabling Hester and the seaman to speak together with- 
out risk of being overheard ; and so changed was Hes- 
ter Prynne’s repute before the public, that the matron 
in town most eminent for rigid morality could not have 
held such intercourse with less result of scandal than 
herself. 

“ So, mbtress,” said the mariner, “ I must bid the 
steward make ready one more berth that you bargained 
for ! No fear of scurvy or ship-fever, this voyage ! 
What with the ship’s surgeon and this other doctor, our 
only danger will be from drug or pill ; more by token, 
as there is a lot of apothecary’s stuff aboard, which I 
traded for with a Spanish vessel.” 

“ What mean you ? ” inquired Hester, startled more 
than she permitted to appear. “ Have you another pas- 
senger ?” 

“ Why, know you not,” cried the shipmaster, “ that 
this physician here — Chillingworth, he calls himself — 
is minded to try my cabin-fare with you ? Ay, ay, 
you must have known it ; for he tells me he is of your 
party, and a close friend to the gentleman you spoke 
of, — he that is in peril from these sour old Puritan 
rulers ! ” 

“ They know each other well, indeed,” replied Hester, 
with a mien of calmness, though in the utmost conster- 
nation. “ They have long dwelt together.” 

Nothing further passed between the mariner and Hes- 
ter Prynne. But, at that instant, she beheld old Roger 
Chillingworth himself, standing in the remotest corner 


THE NE^ ENGLAND HOLIDAY. 

of the narket-place, and smiling on her ; a smile which 
— across the wide and bustling square, and through all 
the talk and laughter, and various thoughts, moods, and 
interests of the nrowd - -conveyed secret and fearful 
meaning 


THE S-7' 4.R.LET LETTEH 


1*76 


AXX l. 

THE PROCESSION. 

Before Hester Piynne could call together her thoughts, 
and consider what was practicable to be done in this new 
ana startling aspect of affairs, the sound of military music 
was heard approaching along a contiguous street. It 
denoted the advance of the procession of magistrates and 
citizens, on its way towards the meeting-house ; where, 
in compliance with a custom thus early established, and 
ever since observed, the Reverend Mr. Dimmesdale was 
to deliver an Election Sermon. 

Soon the head of the procession showed itself, with a 
slow and stately march, turning a comer, and making 
its way across the market-place. First came the music. 
It comprised a variety of instruments, perhaps imperfectly 
adapted to one another, and played with no great skill ; 
but yet attaining the great object for which the harmony 
of drum and clarion addresses itself to the multitude, — 
that of imparting a higher and more heroic air to the 
scene of life that passes before the eye. Little Pearl at 
first clapped her hands, but then lost, for an instant, the 
"estless agitation that had kept her in a continual effer- 
vescence throughout the morning; she gazed silently, 
and seemed to be borne upward, like a floating sea-bird, 
on the long heaves and swells of sound. But she was 
brought back to her former mood by the shimmer of the 
sunshine on the weapons and bright armor of the mili- 
ary company, which followed after the music, and 


THE PROCESSION. 


•ill 


Formed the honorary escort of the procession. This 
body of soldiery — which still sustains a corporate exist- 
ence, and marches down from past ages with an ancient 
and honorable fame — was composed of no mercenary 
materials. Its ranks were filled with gentlemen, who 
felt the stirrings of martial impulse, and sought to estab- 
lish a kind of College of Arms, where, as in ar. associa- 
tion of Knights Templars, they might learn the science, 
and, so far as peaceful exercise w T ould teach them, the 
practices of war. The high estimation then placed upon 
the military character might be seen in the lofty port of 
each individual member of the company. Some of them, 
indeed, by their services in the Low Countries and on 
other fields of European warfare, had fairly w T on their 
title to assume the name and pomp of soldiership. The 
entire array, moreover, clad in burnished steel, and with 
plumage nodding over their bright morions, had a bril- 
liancy of effect which no modem display can aspire to 
equal. 

And yet the men of civil eminence, who came imme- 
diately behind the military escort, were better worth a 
thoughtful observer’s eye. Even in outward demeanor, 
they showed a stamp of majesty that made the warrior’s 
haughty stride look vulgar, if not absurd. It was an 
age when what w r e call talent had far less consideration 
than now, but the massive materials which produce sta- 
bility and dignity of character a great deal more. The 
people possessed, by hereditary right, the quality of rev- 
erence ; wdiich, in their descendants, if it survive at all, 
exists in smaller proportion, and with a vastly diminished 
forcej in the selection and estimate of public men. The 
change may be for good or ill, and is partly, perhaps, fot 


278 


THE SCARLET LETTER. 


both. In that old day, the English settler on iheso ruee 
shores — having left king, nobles, and all degrees of 
awful rank behind, while still the faculty and necessity 
of reverence were strong in him — bestowed it on the 
white hair and venerable brow of age ; on long-tried 
integrity ; on solid wisdom and sad-colored experience ; 
on endowments of that grave and weighty order which 
gives the idea of permanence, and comes under the gen- 
eral definition of respectability. These primitive states- 
men, therefore, — Bradstreet, Endicott, Dudley, Belling- 
ham, and their compeers, — who were elevated to power 
by the early choice of the people, seem to have been not 
often brilliant, but distinguished by a ponderous sobriety, 
rather than activity of intellect. They had fortitude and 
self-reliance, and, in time of difficulty or peril, stood up 
for the welfare of the state like a line of cliffs against a 
tempestuous tide. The traits of character here indicated 
were well represented in the square cast of countenance 
and large physical development of the new colonial mag- 
istrates. So far as a demeanor of natural authority was 
concerned, the mother country need not have been 
ashamed to see these foremost men of an actual democ- 
racy adopted into the House of Peers, or made the Privy 
Council of the sovereign. 

Next in order to the magistrates came the young and 
eminently distinguished divine, from whose lips the reli- 
gious discourse of the anniversary was expected. His 
was the profession, at that era, in which intellectual 
ability displayed itself far more than in political life ; for 
— leaving a higher motive out of the question — it 
offered inducements powerful enough, in the almost wor- 
shipping respect of the community, to win the most aspir- 


T1IK 1'ROCKISION. 


279 


irig ambition into its service. Even political power — as 
in the case of Increase Mather — was within the grasp 
of a successful priest. 

It was the observation of those who beheld him now, 
that never, since Mr. Dimmesdale first set his foot on the 
New England shore, had he exhibited such energy as 
was seen in the gait and air with which he kept his pace 
in the procession. There was no feebleness of step, as 
at other times ; his frame was not bent ; nor did his 
hand rest ominously upon his heart. Yet, if the clergy- 
man were rightly viewed, his strength seemed not of the 
body. It might be spiritual, and imparted to him by 
angelic ministrations. It might be the exhilaration of 
that potent cordial, which is distilled only in the furnace- 
glow of earnest and long-continued thought. Or, per- 
chance, his sensitive temperament was invigorated by 
the loud and piercing music, that swelled heavenward, 
and uplifted him on its ascending wave. Nevertheless, 
so abstracted was his look, it might be questioned whether 
Mr. Dimmesdale even heard the music. There was his 
oody, moving onward, and with an unaccustomed force. 
But where was his mind ? Far and deep in its own 
region, busying itself, with preternatural activity, to 
marshal a procession of stately thoughts that were soon 
to issue thence ; and so he saw nothing, heard nothing, 
knew nothing, of what was around him ; but the spiritual 
element took up the feeble frame, and carried it along, 
unconscious of the burden, and converting it to spirit like 
itself. Men of uncommon intellect, who have grown 
morbid, possess this occasional power of mighty effort, 
into which they throw the life of many days, and then 
are lifeless for as many more. 


280 


TITE SCARLET LETTER. 


Hester Prynne, gazing steadfastly at the clergyman, 
felt a dreary influence come over her, but wherefore oi 
whence she knew not ; unless that he seemed so remote 
from b'T own sphere, and utterly beyond her reach. 
One glance of recognition, she had imagined, must needs 
pass between them. She thought of the dim forest, with 
its little dell of solitude, and love, and anguish, and the 
mossy tree-trunk, where, sitting hand in hand, they had 
mingled their sad and passionate talk with the melan- 
choly murmur of the brook. How deeply had they 
known each other then ! And was this the man ? She 
hardly knew him now ! He, moving proudly past, en- 
veloped, as it were, in the rich music, with the proces- 
sion of majestic and venerable fathers ; he, so unattaina- 
ble in his worldly position, and still more so in that far 
vista of his unsympathizing thoughts, through which she 
now beheld him ! Her spirit sank with the idea that all 
must have been a delusion, and that, vividly as she had 
dreamed it, there could be no real bond betwixt the 
clergyman and herself. And thus much of woman was 
there in Hester, that she could scarcely forgive him, — 
least of all now, when the heavy footstep of their ap- 
proaching Fate might be heard, nearer, nearer, nearer] 
— for being able so completely to withdraw himself fiom 
their mutual world; while she groped darkly, and 
stretched forth her cold hands, and found him not. 

Pearl either saw and responded to her mother’s feel • 
mgs, or herself felt the remoteness and intangibility that 
had fallen around the minister. While the procession 
passed, the child was uneasy, fluttering up and down, 
like a bird on the point of taking flight. When the 
whole had gone by, she looked up into Hester’s face. 


THE PROCESSION. 


28 J 

Motl -*r,” said she, “ was that the same minister that 
Sussed me by the brook ? ” 

“ hfrud thy peace, dear little Pearl ! ” whispered her 
mother. "We must not always talk in the market- 
place of what happens to us in the forest.” 

“ I could not be sure that it was he ; so strange he 
looked,” continued the child. “ Else I would have run 
to him, and bid him kiss me now, before all the people ; 
even as he did yonder among the dark old trees. What 
would the minister have said, mother ? Would he have 
clapped his hand over his heart, and scowled on me, and 
bid me begone ? ” 

What should he say, Pearl,” answered Hester, “ save 
that it was no time to kiss, and that kisses are not to be 
given in the market-place ? Well for thee, foolish child, 
that thou didst not speak to him ! ” 

Another shade of the same sentiment, in reference 
to Mr. Dimmesdale, was expressed by a person whose 
eccentricities — or insanity, as we should term it — led 
her to do what few of the townspeople would have ven- 
tured on ; to begin a conversation with the wearer of 
the scarlet letter, in public. It was Mistress Hibbins, 
who, arrayed in great magnificence, with a triple ruff, a 
broidered stomacher, a gown of rich velvet, and a gold- 
headed cane, had come forth to see the procession. As 
this ancient lady had the renown (which subsequently 
cost her no less a price than her life) of being a principal 
actor in all the works of necromancy that were continu- 
ally going forward, the crowd gave way before her, and 
seemed to fear the touch of her garment, as if it carried 
the plague among its gorgeous folds. Seen in conjunc- 
tion with Hester Prynue, — kindly as so many non felt 


282 


THE SCARLET LETTISH. 


towards the latter, — the dread inspired by Mistress 
Hibbins was doubled, and caused a general movement 
from that part of the market-place in which the two 
women stood. 

“ Now, what mortal imagination could conceive it ! ” 
whispered the old lady, confidentially, to Hester. “ Yon- 
der divine man ! That saint on earth, as the people 
uphold him to be, and as — I must needs say — he 
really looks ! Who, now, that saw him pass in the pro- 
cession, would think how little while it is since he went 
forth out of his study, — chewing a Hebrew text of 
Scripture in his mouth, I warrant, — to take an airing 
in the forest ! Aha ! we know what that means, Hester 
Prynne ! But truly, forsooth, I find it hard to believe 
him the same man. Many a church-member saw 
walking behind the music, that has danced in the same 
measure with me, when Somebody was fiddler, and, it 
might be, an Indian powwow or a Lapland wizard chang- 
ing hands with us ! That is but a trifle, when a woman 
knows the world. But this minister! Couldst thou 
surely tell, Hester, whether he was the same man that 
encountered thee on the forest-path ? ” 

“ Madam, I know not of what you speak,” answered 
Hester Prynne, feeling Mistress Hibbins to be of infirm 
mind ; yet strangely startled and awe-stricken by the 
confidence with which she affirmed a personal connection 
between so many persons (herself among them) and the 
Evil One. “ It is not for me to talk lightly of a learned 
and pious minister of the Word, like the Reverend Mr, 
Dimmesdale ! ” 

“ P m, woman, fie ! ” cried the old lady, shaking hei 
*nger at Hester. “ Dost thou think I have been tc th* 


THE PROCESSION. 


2S3 


lorest so many times, and have yet no skill to judge 
who else has been there ? Yea; though no leaf of the 
wild garlands, which they wore while they danced, be 
left in their hair ! I know thee, Hester ; for I behold 
the token. W e may all see it in the sunshine ; and it 
glows like a red flame in the dark. Thou wearest it 
openly ; so there need be no question about that. But 
this minister ! Let me tell thee, in thine ear ! When 
the Black Man sees one of his own servants, signed and 
sealed, so shy of owning to the bond as is the Reverend 
Mr. Dimmesdale, he hath a way of ordering matters so 
that the mark shall be disclosed in open daylight to the 
eyes of all the world ! What is it that the minister 
seeks to hide, with his hand always over his heart ? Ha, 
Hester Prynne ! ” 

“ What is it, good Mistress Hibbins ? ,v eagerly asked 
little Pearl. “ Hast thou seen it ? ” 

“ No matter, darling ! ” responded Mistress Hibbins, 
making Pearl a profound reverence. “ Thou thyself 
wilt see it, one time or another. They say, child, thou 
art of the lineage of the Prince of the Air! Wilt thou 
ride with me, some fine night, to see thy father ? Then 
thou shalt know wherefore the minister keeps his hand 
over his heart ! ” 

Laughing so shrilly that all tne market-place could 
hear her, the weird old gentlewoman took her departure. 

By this time the preliminary prayer had been offered 
in the meeting-house, and the accents of the Reverend 
Mr. Dimmesdale were heard commencing his discourse. 
An irresistible feeling kept Hester near the spot. As the 
sacred edifice was too much thronged to admit another 
au.litor, she took up her position close beside the scaffold 


284 


THE SCARLET LETTER. 


of thfe pillory. It was in sufficient proximity to nring 
the whole sermon to her ears, in the shape of an indis- 
tinct, but varied, murmur and flow of the minister’s very 
peculiar voice. 

This vocal organ was in itself a rich endowment; 
insomuch that a listener, comprehending nothing of the 
language in which the preacher spoke, might still have 
been swayed to and fro by the mere tone and cadence. 
Like all other music, it breathed passion and pathos, and 
emotions high or tender, in a tongue native to the human 
heart, wherever educated. Muffled as the sound was 
by its passage through the church-walls, Hester Prynne 
listened with such intentness, and sympathized so inti- 
mately, that the sermon had throughout a meaning for her. 
entirely apart from its indistinguishable words. These, 
perhaps, if more distinctly heard, might have been onlj 
a grosser medium, and have clogged the spiritual sense 
Now she caught the low undertone, as of the wind sink 
ing down to repose itself; then ascended with it, as if 
rose through progressive gradations of sweetness and 
power, until its volume seemed to envelop her with an 
atmosphere of awe and solemn grandeur. And yet, 
majestic as the voice sometimes became, there was for- 
ever in it an essential character of plaintiveness. A loud 
or low expression of anguish, — the whisper, or the 
shriek, as it might be conceived, of suffering humanity, 
that touched a sensibility in every bosom ! At times 
this deep strain of pathos was all that could be heard, 
and scarcely heard, sighing amid a desolate silence. But 
even when the minister’s voice grew high and command 
ing, — when it gushed irrepressibly upward, — when it 
asnumed Its utmost breadth and power, so overfilling the 


THE PROCESSION. 


285 


church as to burst its way through the solid walls, ant 
diffuse itself in the open air, — still, if the auditor listened 
intently, and for the purpose, he could detect the same 
cry of pain. What was it ? The complaint of a human 
heart, sorrow-laden, perchance guilty, telling its secret, 
whether of guilt or sorrow, to the great heart of man- 
kind ; beseeching its sympathy or forgiveness, — at 
every moment, — in each accent, — and never in vain ! 
It was this profound and continual undertone that gave 
the clergyman his most appropriate power. 

During all this time, Hester stood, statue-like, at the 
foot of the scaffold. If the minister’s voice had not 
kept her there, there would nevertheless have been an 
inevitable magnetism in that spot, whence she dated the 
first hour of her life of ignominy. There was a sense 
within her, — too ill-defined to be made a thought, but 
weighing heavily on her mind, — that her whole orb of 
life, both before and after, was connected with this spot, 
as with the one point that gave it unity. 

Little Pearl, meanwhile, had quitted her mother’s 
side, and was playing at her own will about the market- 
place. She made the sombre crowd cheerful by her 
erratic and glistening ray ; even as a bird of bright plum- 
age illuminates a whole tree of dusky foliage, by dart- 
ing to and fro, half seen and hall concealed amid the 
twilight of the clustering leaves. She had an undula- 
ting, but, oftentimes, a sharp and irregular movement. It 
indicated the restless vivacity of her spirit, which to-day 
was doubly indefatigable in. its tiptoe dance, because it 
was played upon and vibrated with her mother’s disqui- 
etude. Whenever Pearl saw anything to excite her eve! 
active and wandering curiosity, she flew thitherward 


566 


THE SCARLET LETTER. 


and, as we might say, seized upon that man or thing as 
her own property, so far as she desired it ; but without 
yielding the minutest degree of control over her motions 
ill requital. The Puritans looked on, and, if they smiled, 
were none the less inclined to pronounce the child a 
demon offspring, from the indescribable charm of beauty 
and eccentricity that shone through her little figure, and 
sparkled v/ith its activity. She ran and looked the wild 
Indian in the face ; and he grew conscious of a nature 
wilder than his own. Thence, with native audacity, 
but still with a reserve as characteristic, she flew into 
the midst of a group of mariners, the swarthy-cheeked 
wild men of the ocean, as the Indians were of the land ; 
and they gazed wonderingly and admiringly at Pearl, as 
if a flake of the sea-foam had taken the shape of a little 
maid, and were gifted with a soul of the sea-fire, that 
flashes beneath the prow in the night-time. 

One of these seafaring men — the shipmaster, indeed, 
who had spoken to Hester Prynne — was so smitten with 
Pearl’s aspect, that he attempted to lay hands upon her, 
with purpose to snatch a kiss. Finding it as impossible 
to touch her as to catch a humming-bird in the air, he 
took from his hat the gold chain that was twisted about 
it, and threw it to the child. Pearl immediately twined 
it around her neck and waist, with such happy skill, that, 
once seen there, it became a part of her, and it was 
difficult to imagine her without it. 

“ Thy mother is yonder woman with the scarlet let- 
ter,” said the seaman. “ Wilt theu carry her a message 
from me ? ” 

“ If the message pleases me, I will,” answered Pearl. 

“Then tell her,” rejoined he, “that I spake again 


TTIE PROCESSION. 


28 " 


with the black-a-visaged, hump-shouldered old doctor, 
and he engages to bring his friend, the gentleman she 
wots of, aboard with him. So let thy mother take no 
thought, save for herself and thee. Wilt thou tell her 
this, thou witch-baby ? ” 

“ Mistress Hibbins says my father is the Prince of 
the Air ! ” cried Pearl, with a naughty smile. “ If thou 
callest me that ill name, I shall tell him of thee ; and he 
will chase thy ship with a tempest ! ” 

Pursuing a zigzag course across the market-place, the 
child returned to her mother, and communicated what 
the mariner had said. Hester’s strong, calm, steadfastly 
enduring spirit almost sank, at last, on beholding this 
dark and grim countenance of an inevitable doom, which 

— at the moment when a passage seemed to open foi 
the minister and herself out of their labyrinth of misery 

— showed itself, with an unrelenting smile, right in the 
midst of their path. 

With her mind harassed by the terrible perplexity 
in which the shipmaster’s intelligence involved her, she 
was also subjected to another trial. There were many 
people present, from the country round about, who had 
often heard of the scarlet letter, and to whom it had 
been made terrific by a hundred false or exaggerated 
rumors, but who had never beheld it with their own 
bodily eyes. These, after exhausting other modes of 
amusement, now thronged about Hester Prynne with 
rude and boorish intrusiveness. Unscrupulous a° it was, 
however, it could not bring them nearer than a circuit 
of several yards. At that distance they accordingly 
stood, fixed there by the centrifugal force of the. repug- 
mnce which the mystic symbol inspired. Th* whote 


288 


THE SCARLET LETTER. 


gang of sailors, likewise, observing the press of spectators, 
and learning the purport of the scarlet letter, came and 
thrust their sunburnt and desperado-looking faces into 
the ring. Even the Indians were affected by a sort of 
cold shadow of the white man’s curiosity, and, gliding 
through the crowd, .fastened their snake-like black eyes 
on Hester’s bosom ; conceiving, perhaps, that the wearer 
»f this brilliantly embroidered badge must needs be a 
personage of high dignity among her people. Lastly 
the inhabitants of the town (their own interest in this 
worn-out subject languidly reviving itself, by sympathy 
with what they saw others feel) lounged idly to the same 
quarter, and tormented Hester Prynne, perhaps more 
chan all the rest, with their cool, well-acquainted gaze at 
her familiar shame. Hester saw and recognized the 
self-same faces of that group of matrons, who had awaited 
her forthcoming from the prison-door, seven years ago ; 
aU save one, the youngest and only compassionate 
among them, whose burial-robe she had since made. 
At the final hour, when she was so soon to fling aside 
the burning* letter, it had strangely become the centre of 
more remark and excitement, and was thus made to sear 
her breast more painfully, than at any time since the 
first day she put it on. 

While Hester stood in that magic circle of ignominy, 
where the cunning cruelty of her sentence seemed to 
have fixed her forever, the admirable preacher was 
looking down from the sacred pulpit upon an audience 
whose very inmost spirits had yielded to his control. 
The sainted minister in the church ! The woman of 
the scarlet letter in the market-place ! What imagi- 
nation would have been irreverent enough to surmise 
that the same scorching stigma was on them both I 


THE EEVCLATION OF TIIF, SCAKLET LETTEH. 


XXIII. 

1HE REVELATION OF THE SCARLET LETTER 

The eloquent voice, on which the souls of the listen* 
ing audience had been borne aloft as on the swelling 
waves of the sea, at length came to a pause. There 
was a momentary silence, profound as what should fol- 
low the utterance of oracles. Then ensued a murmur 
and half-hushed tumult ; as if the auditors, released 
from the high spell that had transported them into the 
region of another’s mind, were returning into themselves, 
with all their awe and wonder still heavy on them. In 
a moment more, the crowd began to gush forth from the 
doors of the church. Now that there was an end, they 
needed other breath, more fit to support the gross and 
earthly life into which they relapsed, than that atmos- 
phere which the preacher had converted into words of 
flame, and had burdened with the rich fragrance of his 
thought. 

In the open air their rapture broke into speech. The 
street and the market-place absolutely babbled, from side 
to side, with applauses of the minister. His hearers 
could not rest until they had told one another of what 
each knew better than he could tell or hear. According 
to their united testimony, never had man spoken in so 
wise, so high, and so holy a spirit, as he that spake this 
day ; nor had inspiration ever breathed through mortal 
lips more evidently than it did through his. Its influ- 
ence c uld be seen, as it were, descending upon him, 
19 


290 


THE SCARLET LETTER. 


and possessing him, and continually lifting him out ol 
the written discourse that lay before him, and filling him 
with ideas that must have been as marvellous to himself 
as to his audience. His subject, it appeared, had been 
the relation between the Deity and the communities of 
mankind, with a special reference to the New England 
which they were here planting in the wilderness. And, 
as he drew towards the close, a spirit as of prophecy had 
come upon him, constraining him to its purpose as 
mightily as the old prophets of Israel were constrained , 
only with this difference, that, whereas the Jewish seers 
had denounced judgments and ruin on their country, it 
was his mission to foretell a high and glorious destiny 
for the newly gathered people of the Lord. But, through- 
out it all, and through the whole discourse, there had 
been a certain deep, sad undertone of pathos, which 
could not be interpreted otherwise than as the natural 
regret of one soon to pass away. Yes ; their minister 
whom they so loved — and who so loved them all, that 
he could not depart heavenward without a sigh — had the 
foreboding of untimely death upon him, and would soon 
leave them in then tears ! This idea of his transitory 
stay on earth gave the last emphasis to the effect which 
the preacher had produced ; it was as if an angel, in his 
passage to the skies, had shaken his bright wings over 
the people for an instant, — at once a shadow and a 
splendor, — and had shed down a shower of golden 
truths upon them. 

Thus, there had come to the Reverend Mr. Dimmes- 
dale — as to most men, in their various spheres, though 
seldom recognized until they see it far behind them — 
an epoch of life more brilliant and full of triumph ilia. 


THE REVELATION OF THE SCARLET LETTER. 


29 ! 


any previous one, or than any which could hereafter be. 
He stood, at this moment, on the very proudest eminence 
of superiority, to which the gifts of intellect, rich lore- 
prevailing eloquence, and a reputation of whitest sanctity, 
could exalt a clergyman in New England’s earliest Uays, 
when the professional character was of itself a lofty 
pedestal. Such was the position which the minister 
occupied, as he bowed his head forward on the cushions 
of the pulpit, at the close of his Election Sermon. Mean- 
while Hester Prynne was standing beside the scaffold of 
the pillory, with the scarlet letter still burning on her 
breast ! 

Now was heard again the clangor of the music, and the 
measured tramp of the military escort, issuing from the 
church-door. The procession was to be marshalled thence 
to the town-hall, where a solemn banquet would complete 
the ceremonies of the day. 

Once more, therefore, the train of venerable and ma- 
jestic fathers was seen moving through a broad pathway 
of the people, who drew back reverently, on either side, 
as the Governor and magistrates, the old and wise men, 
the holy ministers, and all that were eminent and re- 
nowned, advanced into the midst of them. When they 
were fairly in the market-place, their presence was greeted 
by a shout. This — though doubtless it might acquire 
additional force and volume from the childlike loyalty 
which the age awarded to its rulers — was felt to be an 
irrepressible outburst of enthusiasm kindled in the audi- 
tors by that high strain of eloquence which was yet 
reverberating in their ears. Each felt the impulse m 
himself, and, in the same breath, caught it from his 
neighbor. Within the church, it had hardly been kept 


292 


THE SCARLET LETTER. 


down; beneath the sky, it pealed upward to the zenitii. 
There were human beings enough, and enough of 
highly wrought and symphonious feeling, to produce 
that more impressive sound than the organ tones of the 
blast, or the thunder, or the roar of the sea ; even that 
mighty swell o( many voices, blended into one great 
voice by the universal impulse which makes likewise 
one vast heart out of the many. Never, from the soil 
of New England, had gone up such a shout ! Never, 
on New England soil, had stood the man so honored by 
his mortal brethren as the preacher ! 

How fared it with him then? Were there not the 
brilliant particles of a halo in the air about his head ? 
So etherealized by spirit as he was, and so apotheosized 
by worshipping admirers, did his footsteps, in the proces- 
sion, really tread upon the dust of earth ? 

As the ranks of military men and civil fathers moved 
onward, all eyes were turned towards the point where 
the minister was seen to approach among them. The 
shout died into a murmur, as one portion of the crowd 
after another obtained a glimpse of him. How feeble 
and pale he looked, amid all his triumph ! The energy 
— or say, rather, the inspiration which had held him up, 
until he .should have delivered the sacred message that 
brought its own strength along with it from heaven — 
was withdrawn, now that it had so faithfully performed 
its office. The glow, which they had just before beheld 
burning on his cheek, was extinguished, like a flame 
that sinks down hopelessly among the late-decaying 
embers. It seened hardly the face of a man aJive, with 
such a deathlike hue; it was hardly a man with ‘«j 


THE REVELATION OF THE SCARLET LETTEF., 29^ 


him, that tottered on his path so nervelessly yet tot- 
tered, and did not fall ! 

One of his clerical brethren, — it was the venerable 
John Wilson, — observing the state in which Mr. Dim- 
rnesdale was left by the retiring wave of intellect and 
sensibility, stepped forward hastily to offer his support. 
The minister tremulously, but decidedly, repelled the old 
man’s ann. He still walked onward, if that movement 
could be so described, which rather resembled the waver- 
ing effort of an infant, with its mother’s arms in view, 
outstretched to tempt him forward. And now, almost 
imperceptible as were the latter steps of his progress, he 
had come opposite the well -remembered and weather- 
darkened scaffold, where, long since, with all that dreary 
lapse of time between, Hester Prynne had encountered 
the world’s ignominious stare. There stood Hester, 
holding little Pearl by the hand ! And there was the 
scarlet letter on ner breast ! The minister here made a 
pause ; although the music still played the stately and 
rejoicing march to which the procession moved. It 
summoned him onward, — onward to the festival! — but 
here he made a pause. 

Bellingham, for the last few moments, had kept an 
anxious eye upon him. He now left his own place in 
the procession, and advanced to give assistance ; judging, 
from Mr. Dimmesdale’s aspect, that he must otherwise 
inevitably fall. But there was something in the latter’s 
expression that warned back the magistrate, although a 
man not readily obeying the vague intimations that pass 
from one spirit to another. The crowd, meanwhile, 
looked on with awe and wonder. This earthly faintness 
was in their view, only another phase of the mirister’a 


294 


THE SCARLET LETTER. 


celestial strength ; nor would it have seemed a miracle 
too nigh to be wrought for one so holy, had he ascended 
before theit eyes, waxing dimmer and brighter, and 
fading at last into the light of heaven ! 

He turned towards the scaffold, and stretched forth his 
arms. 

“ Hester,” said he, “ come hither ! Come, my little 
Pearl!” 

It was a ghastly look with which he regarded them ; 
but there was something at once tender and strangely 
triumphant in it. The child, with the bird-like motion 
which was one of her characteristics, flew to him, and 
clasped her arms about his knees. Hester Prynne — 
slowly, as if impelled by inevitable fate, and against her 
strongest will — likewise drew near, but paused before 
she reached him. At this instant, old Roger Chilling- 
worth thrust himself through the crowd, — or, perhaps, sc 
dark, disturbed and evil, was his look, he rose up out of 
some nether region, — to snatch back his victim fronr. 
what he sought to do ! Be that as it might, the old man 
^rushed forward, and caught the minister by the arm. 

“ Madman, hold ! what is your purpose ? ” whispered 
he. “ Wave back that woman ! Cast off* this child ! 
All shall be well! Do not blacken your fame, and 
perish in dishonor! lean yet save you! Would you 
bring infamy on your sacred profession?” 

“Ha, tempter! Methinks thou art too late!” 
swered the minister, encountering his eye, fearfully, but 
firmly. “ Thy power is not what it was ! With God’s 
help, I shall escape thee now ! ” 

He again extended his hand to the woman of the 
scarlet letter. 


THE REVELATION CF THE SCARLET LETTER. 295 


14 Hester Prynne,” cried he, with a piercing earnest* 
ness, “ in the name of Him, so terrible and so merciful, 
who gives me grace, at this last moment, to do what — 
for my own heavy sin and miserable agony — I withheld 
myself from doing seven years ago, come hither now, 
and twine thy strength about me ! Thy strength, Hestei , 
but let it be guided by the will w r hich God hath granted 
me ! This wretched and wronged old man is opposing 
it with all his might ! — with all his own might, and the 
fiend’s ! Come, Hester, come ! Support me up yonder 
scaffold ! ” 

The crowd was in a tumult. The men of rank ana 
dignity, who stood more immediately around the clergy- 
man, were so taken by surprise, and so perplexed as to 
the purport of what they saw, — unable to receive the 
explanation which most readily presented itself, or to 
imagine any other, — that they remained silent and 
inactive spectators of the judgment which Providence 
seemed about to work. They beheld the minister, lean- 
ing on Hester’s shoulder, and supported by her arm 
around him, approach the scaffold, and ascend its step- • 
while still the little hand of the sin-born child was 
clasped in his. Old Roger Chillingworth followed, as 
one intimately connected with the drama of guilt and 
sorrow in which they had all been actors, and well 
entitled, therefore, to be present, at its closing scene. 

“ Hadst thou sought the whole earth over,” said he, 
looking darkly at the clergyman, “there was uo one 
place so secret, — no high place nor lowly place, where 
tho* couldst have escaped me, — save on this very 
scaffold!” 


296 


THE SCARLET LETTER. 


“Thanks be to Him who hath led me hither!” an* 
swered the minister. 

Yet he trembled, and turned to Hester with an ex- 
pression of doubt and anxiety in his eyes, not the less 
evidently betrayed, that there was a feeble smile upon 
his lips. 

“Is not this better,” murmured he, “than what we 
dreamed of in the forest ? ” 

“I know not! I know not! ’’she hurriedly replied. 
“Better? Yea; so we may both die, and little Pearl 
die with us ! ” 

“ For thee and Pearl, be it as God shall order,” said 
the minister; “and God is merciful ! Let me now do 
the will which he hath made plain before my sight. 
For, Hester, I am a dying man. So let me make haste 
to take my shame upon me ! ” 

Partly supported by Hester Prynne, and hoi ling one 
hand of little Pearl’s, the Reverend Mr. Dimmesdfde 
turned to the dignified and venerable rulers ; to the holy 
ministers, who were his brethren ; to the people, whose 
great heart was thoroughly appalled, yet overt! owing 
with tearful sympathy, as knowing that some deep iiie- 
matter — which, if full of sin, was full of anguish and 
repentance likewise — was now to be laid open to them . 
The sun, but little past its meridian, shone down upon the 
clergyman, and gave a distinctness to his figure, as be 
stood out from all the earth, to put in his plea of g iilty 
at the bar of Eternal Justice. 

“ People of New England !” cried he, with a voice 
that rose over them, high, solemn, and majestic, — yet 
had always a tremor through it, and sometimes a slmek, 
struggling up out of a fathomless depth of remorse and 


THE R£\ ELATION OF THE SCARLET LETTER. 2fl’i 


wo** _.«ye, that have loved me! — ye, that have 
deemed me holy ! — behold me here, the one sinner of 
the world ! At last ! — at last ! — I stand upon the 
spot where, seven years since, I should have stood ; 
here, with this woman, whose arm, more than the little 
strength wherewith I have crept hitherward, sustains 
me, at this dreadful moment, from grovelling down upon 
my face ! Lo, the scarlet letter which Hester wears ! 
Ye have all shuddered at it ! Wherever her walk hath 
been, — wherever, so miserably burdened, she may have 
hoped to find repose, — it hath cast a lurid gleam of 
awe and horrible repugnance round about her. But 
there stood one in the mids? of you, at whose brand of 
sin and infamy ye have not shuddered!” 

It seemed, at this point, as if the minister must 
leave the remainder of his secret undisclosed. But he 
fought back the bodily weakness, — and, still more, the 
faintness of heart, — that was striving for the mastery 
with him. He threw off all assistance, and stepped 
passionately forward a pace before the woman and the 
child. 

“ It was on him ! ” he continued, with a kind of 
fierceness ; so determined was he to speak out the 
whole. “ God’s eye beheld it ! The angels were for- 
ever pointing at it ! The Devil knew it well, and fretted 
it continually with the touch of his burning finger ! But 
he hid it cunningly from men, and walked among you 
with the mien of a spirit, mournful, because so pure in a 
sinful world ! — and sad, because he missed his heavenly 
kindred ! Now, at the death-hour, he stands up before 
you ! He oids you look again at Hester’s scarlet letter . 
He tells you, that with all its mysterious horror, it is 


298 


THE SCARLET LETTER. 


but the shadow of what he bears on his own breast, and 
that even this, his own red stigma, is no more than the 
type of what has seared his inmost heart ! Stand any 
here that question God’s judgment on a sinner ? Be* 
hold ! Behold a dreadful witness of it ! ” 

With a convulsive motion, he tore away the minis- 
terial band from before his breast. It was revealed ! 
But it were irreverent to describe that revelation. For 
an instant, the gaze of the horror-stricken multitude was 
concentred on the ghastly miracle ; while the minister 
stood, with a flush of triumph in his face, as one who, in 
the crisis of acutest pain, had won a victory. Then, 
down he sank upon the scaffold ! Hester partly raised 
him, and supported his head against her bosom. Old 
Roger Chillingworth knelt down beside him, with a 
blank, dull countenance, out of which the life seemed to 
to have departed. 

“Thou hast escaped me!” he repeated more than 
once. “ Thou hast escaped me ! ” 

“ May God forgive thee ! ” said the minister. “ Thou, 
too, hast deeply sinned ! ” 

He withdrew his dying eyes from the old man, and 
fixed them on the woman and the child. 

“ My little Pearl,” said he, feebly, — and there was a 
sweet and gentle smile over his face, as of a spirit sink- 
ing into deep repose ; nay, now that the burden was 
removed, it seemed almost as if he would be sportive 
with the child, — “ dear little Pearl, wilt thou kiss me 
now ? Thou wouldst not, yonder, in the forest ! But 
aow thou wilt ? ” 

Pearl kissed his lips. A sp Q ll was broken. The great 
scene of grief, in which the wild infant bore a part, had 
developed all her sympathies; and as her tears fell upon 


THE REVELATION OF THE SCARLET LETTER. 239 


tier father’s cheek, they were the pledge that she would 
grow up amid human joy and sorrow, nor forever do bat- 
tle with the world, hut be a woman in it. Towards her 
mother, too. Pearl’s errand as a messenger of anguish 
was all fulfilled. 

Hester,” said the clergyman, “ farewell ! ” 

/ “ Shall we not meet again ? ” whispered she, bending 
her face down close to his. “ Shall we not spend our 
immortal life together ? Surely, surely, we have, ran- 
somed one another, with all this woe ! Thou lookest 
far into eternity, with those bright dying eyes ! Then 
tell me what thou seest ? ” 

“ Hush, Hester, hush ! ” said he, with tremulous 
solemnity. “ The law we broke ! — the sin here so 
awfully revealed ! — let these alone be in thy thoughts ! 
I fear ! I fear ! It may be, that, when we forgot our 
God, — when we violated our reverence each for the 
other’s soul, — it was thenceforth vain to hope that we 
could meet hereafter, in an everlasting and pure re- 
union. God knows ; and He is merciful ! He hath 
proved his mercy, most of all, in my afflictions. By 
giving me this burning torture to bear upon my breast ! 
By sending yonder dark and terrible old man, to keep 
the torture always at red-heat ! By bringing me hither, 
to die this death of triumphant ignominy before the peo- 
ple ! Had either of these agonies been wanting, I had 
been lost forever ! Praised be his name ! His will be 
done ! Fa rewell !^ 

That final word came forth with the minister’s ex- 
piring breath. The multitude, silent till then, broke out 
in a strange, deep voice of and wonder, which could 
not as yet find utterance, save in this murmur that rolled 
eo heavilv off or the departed spirit. 


300 


THE SCARLET LEITER. 


XXIV. 

CONCLUSION. 

After many days, when time sufficed for tht people 
to arrange their thoughts in reference to the foregoing 
scene, there was more than one account of what had 
been witnessed on the scaffold. 

Most of the spectators testified to having seen, on the 
breast of the unhappy minister, a scarlet letter — the 
very semblance of that worn by Hester Prynne — im- 
printed in the flesh. As regarded its origin, there were 
various explanations, all of which must necessarily have 
been conjectural. Some affirmed that the Reverend Mr. 
Dimmesdale, on the very day when Hester Prynne first 
wore her ignominious badge, had begun a course of pen-* 
ance, — which he afterwards, in so many futile methods, 
followed out, — by inflicting a hideous torture on him- 
self. Others contended that the stigma had not been 
produced until a long time subsequent, when old Roger 
Chillingworth, being a potent necromancer, had caused 
it to appear, through the agency of magic and poisonous 
drugs. Others, again, — and those best able to appre- 
ciate the minister’s peculiar sensibility, and the wonder- 
ful operation of his spirit upon the body, — whispered 
their belief, that the awful symbol was the effect of the 
ever active tooth of remorse, gnawing from the inmost 
heart outwardly, and at last manifesting Heaven’s dread- 
ful judgment by the visible presence of the le tter. The 
reader may choose among these theoiies. We have 


CONCLUSION. 


*J0I 

thrown all the light we could acquire upon the portent* 
*.nd would gladly, now that it has done its office, erase 
its deep print out of our own brain; where longmedita- 
tion has fixed it in very undesirable distinctness. 

It is singular, nevertheless, that certain persons, wha 
ivere spectators of the whole scene, and professed never 
once to have removed their eyes from the Reverend Mr. 
Dimmesdale, denied that there was any mark whatever 
on his breast, more than on a new-born infant’s. Neither, 
by their report, had his dying words acknowledged, nor 
even remotely implied, any, the slightest connection, on 
his part, with the guilt for which Hester Prynne had so 
long worn the scarlet letter. According to these higb’y 
respectable witnesses, the minister, conscious that he was 
dying, — conscious, also, that the reverence of the mul- 
titude placed him already among saints and angels, — 
had desired, by yielding up his breath in the arms of that 
fallen woman, to express to the world how utterly nuga- 
tory is the choicest of man’s own righteousness. After 
exhausting life in his efforts for mankind’s spiritual good, 
he had made the manner of his death a parable, in order 
to impress on his admirers the mighty and mournful les- 
son, that, in the view of Infinite Purity, we are sinners 
all alike. It was to teach them, that the holiest among 
us has but attained so far above his fellows as to discern 
more clearly the Mercy which looks down, and repudiate 
more utterly the phantom of human merit, which would 
look aspiringly upward. Without disputing a truth so 
momentous, we must be allowed to consider this version 
of Mr. Dimmesdale’s story as only an instance of that 
stubborn fidelity with which a man’s friends — and 
especially a clergyman’s — will sometimes uphold his 


302 


THE SCARLET LETTER. 


character when proofs, clear as the mid-day sunshine 
on the scarlet letter, establish him a false and sin-stained 
creature of the dust. 

The authority which we have chiefly followed, — * 
manuscript of old date, drawn up from the verbal testi- 
mony of individuals, some of whom had known Hester 
Prynne, while others had heard the tale from contempo- 
rary witnesses, — fully confirms the view taken in the 
foregoing pages. Among many morals which press upon 
us from the poor minister’s miserable experience, we put 
only this into a sentence : — “Be true ! Be true ! Be 
true ! Show freely to the world, if not your worst, yet 
some trait whereby the worst may be inferred ! ” 

Nothing was more remarkable than the change which 
took place, almost immediately after Mr. Dimmesdale’s 
death, in the appearance and demeanor of the old man 
known as Roger Chillingworth. All his strength and 
energy — all his vital and intellectual force — seemed at 
once to desert him ; insomuch that he positively withered 
up, shrivelled away, and almost vanished from mortal 
sight, like an uprooted weed that lies wilting in the sun. 
This unhappy man had made the very principle of his 
life to consist in the pursuit and systematic exercise of 
revenge ; and when, by its completest triumph and con- 
summation, that evil principle was left with no further 
material to support it, when, in short, there was no 
more Devil’s work on earth for him to do, it only remained 
for the unhumanized mortal to betake himself whithei 
his Master would find him tasks enough, and pay him 
his wages duly. But, to all these shadowy beings, so 
long our near acquaintances, — as well Roger Chilling- 
worth a i his companions, — we would fain be merciful 


C0NCLIS.0N. 


303 

It is i curious subject of observation and inquiry, whether 
hatred and love be not the same thing at bottom. Each, 
in its utmost development, supposes a high degree of 
intimacy and heart-knowledge ; each renders one indi- 
vidual dependent for the food of his affections and spirit- 
ual life upon another; each leaves the passionate lover, 
or the no less passionate hater, forlorn and desolate by 
the withdrawal of his subject. Philosophically consid- 
ered, therefore, the two passions seem essentially the 
same, except that one happens to be seen in a celestial 
radiance, and the other in a dusky and lurid glow. In 
the spiritual world, the old physician and the ministei 
— mutual victims as they have been — may, unawares, 
have found their earthly stock of hatred and antipathy 
transmuted into golden love. 

Leaving this discussion apart, we have a matter of 
business to communicate to the reader. At old Roger 
Chillingworth’s decease, (which took place within the 
year,) and by his last will and testament, of which Gov- 
ernor Bellingham and the Reverend Mr. Wilson were 
executors, he bequeathed a very considerable amount of 
property, both here and in England, to little Pearl, the 
daughter of Hester Prynne. 

So Pearl — the elf-child, — the demon offspring, as 
some people, up to that epoch, persisted in considering 
her, — became the richest heiress of her day, in the New 
W 'rid. Not improbably, this circumstance wrought a 
very material change in the public estimation ; and, had 
the mother and child remained here, little Pearl, at a 
marriageable period of life, might have mingled her wild 
blood with the lineage of the devoutest Puritan among 
them all. But, in no long time after the physician’* 


*04 


THE SCARLET LL ITER. 


death, the wearer of the scarlet letter disappeaied, and 
Pearl along with her. For many years, though a vague 
report would now and then find its way across the sea, 

— like a shapeless piece of driftwood tost ashore, with 
the initials of a name upon it, — yet no tidings of them 
unquestionably authentic were received. The story of 
the scarlet letter grew into a legend. Its spell, however, 
was still potent, and kept the scaffold awful where the 
ooor minister had died, and likewise the cottage by the 
<ea-shore, where Hester Prynne had dwelt. Near this 
latter spot, one afternoon, some children were at play, 
when they beheld a tall woman, in a gray robe, approach 
the cottage-door. In all those years it had never once 
^een opened ; but either she unlocked it, or the decaying 
wood and iron yielded to her hand, or she glided shadow- 
dke through these impediments, — and, at all events, 
went in. 

On the threshold she paused, — turned partly round, 

— for, perchance, the idea of entering all alone, and all 
so changed, the home of so intense a former life, was 
more dreary and desolate than even she could bear. But 
her hesitation was only for an instant, though long 
enough to display a scarlet letter on her breast. 

And Hester Prynne had returned, and taken up her 
. ong-forsaken shame ! But where was little Pearl ? If 
still aiive, she must now have been in the flush and 
bloom of early womanhood. None knew — nor ever 
learned, with the fulness of perfect certaint} — whether 
jth% elf-child had gone thus untimely to a maiden grave ; 
P^v^telfher her wild, rich nature had been softened and 
ma ^ e capable of a woman’s gentle happi- 
remainder of Hester’s life, there 


cOxNCLCSlON. 


were indications that the recluse of the scarlet letter was 
the object of love and interest with some inhabitant of 
another land. Letters came, with armorial seals upon 
them, though of bearings unknown to English heraldry, 
on the cottage there were articles of comfort and luxury 
such as Hester never cared to use, but which only wealth 
could have purchased, and affection have imagined for 
her. There were trifles, too, little ornaments, beautiful 
tokens of a continual remembrance, that must have been 
wrought by delicate fingers, at the impulse of a fond 
heart. And, once, Hester was seen embroidering a baby- 
garment, with such a lavish richness of golden fancy as 
would have raised a public tumult, had any infant, thus 
apparelled, been shown to our sober-hued community. 

In fine, the gossips of that day believed, — and Mr. 
Surveyor Pue, who. made investigations a century later, 
believed, — and one of his recent successors in ofher, 
moreover, faithfully believes, — that Pearl was not only 
alive, but married, and happy, and mindful of her mother 
and that she would most joyfully have entertained that 
sad and lonely mother at her fireside. 

But there was a more real life for Hester Prynne 
here, in New England, than in that unknown region 
where Pearl had found a home. Here had been her sin ; 
nere, her sorrow ; and here was yet to be her penitence. 
She had returned, therefore, and resumed, — ofher ow~n 
free will, for not the sternest magistrate of that iron period 
would have imposed it, — resumed the symbol of which 
we have related so dark a tale. Never afterwards did 
it quit her bosom. But, in the lapse of the toilsome, 
thoughtful, and self-devoted years that made up Hesters 
life, the scarlet letter ceased to be a stigma wh’ch at 
20 


300 


'I HE SCARLET LETTER. 


traded the world’s scorn and bitterness, and became e 
type of something to be sorrowed over, and looked upon 
with awe, yet with reverence too. And, as Hester 
Prynne had no selfish ends, nor lived in any ineasurt 
for her own profit and enjoyment, people brought all 
their sorrows and perplexities, and besought her counsel, 
as one who had herself gone through a mighty trouble. 
Women, more especially, — in the continually recurring 
trials of wounded, wasted, wronged, misplaced, or erring 
and sinful passion, — or with the dreary burden of a 
heart unyielded, because unvalued and unsought, — 
came to Hester’s cottage, demanding why they were so 
wretched, and what the remedy ! Hester comforted and 
counselled them, as best she might. She assured them, 
too, of her firm belief, that, at some brighter period, when 
the world should have grown ripe for it, in Heaven’s own 
time, a new truth would be revealed, in order to establish 
the whole relation between man and woman on a surer 
ground of mutual happiness. Earlier in life, Hester had 
vainly imagined that she herself might be the destined 
prophetess, but had long since recognized the impossi- 
bility that any mission of divine and mysterious truth 
should be confided to a woman stained with sin, bowed 
down with shame, or even burdened with a life-long sor- 
row. The angel and apostle of the coming revelation 
must be a woman, indeed, but lofty, pure, and beautiful; 
and wise, moreover, not through dusky grief, but the 
ethereal medium of joy ; and showing how sacred love 
should make us happy, by the truest test of a life sue 
cessful to such an end ! 

So said Hester Prynne, and glanced her sad eyes 
downward at the scarlet tetter. And. after many many 


CONCLUSION. 


307 


years, a new grave was delved, near an old and sunken 
one, in that burial-ground beside which King’s Chapel 
has since been built. It was near that old and sunken 
grave, yet with a space between, as if the dust of the 
two sleepers had no right to mingle. Yet one tomb- 
stone served for both. All around, there were monu- 
ments carved with armorial bearings; and on this simple 
slab of slate — as the curious investigator may still dis- 
cern, and perplex himself with the purport — there ap- 
peared the semblance of an engraved escutcheon. It 
bore a device, a herald’s wording of which might serve 
for a motto and brief description of our now concluded 
legend ; so sombre is it, and relieved only by one ever- 
glowing point of light gloomier than the shadow : — 


“On a field, sable, the letter A, gules; 






' 
















■ 













The Beitiiedale Romance. See page 272. 






THE 


\ 

BLITHEDALE ROMANCE. 















PREFACE. 


In tlie “Blithedale” of this volume many 
readers will, probably, suspect a faint and not very 
faithful shadowing of Brook Farm, in Roxbury, 
which (now a little more than ten years ago) was 
occupied and cultivated by a company of socialists. 
The author does not wish to deny that he had this 
community in his mind, and that (having had the 
good fortune, for a time, to be personally connected 
with it) he has occasionally availed himself of his 
actual reminiscences, in the hope of giving a more 
life-like tint to the fancy-sketch in the following 
pages. He begs it to be understood, however, that 
he has considered the institution itself as not less 
fairly the subject of fictitious handling than the 
imaginary personages whom he has introduced 
there. His whole treatment of the affair is alto- 
gether incidental to the main purpose of the ro- 
mance ; nor does he put forward the slightest pre- 
tensions to illustrate a theory, or elicit a conclusion, 
favorable or otherwise, in respect to socialism. 

In short, his present concern with the socialist 


tv 


PREFACE. 


community is merely to establish a theatre, a littlo 
removed from the highway of ordinary travel, where 
the creatures of his brain may play their phantasma- 
gorical antics, without exposing them to too close a 
comparison with the actual events of real lives. In the 
old countries, with which fiction has long been con- 
versant, a certain conventional privilege seems to be 
awarded to the romancer ; his work is not put exactly 
side by side with nature ; and he is allowed a license 
with regard to every-day probability, in view of the 
improved effects which he is bound to produce thereby. 
Among ourselves, on the contrary, there is as yet no 
such Faery Land, so like the real world, that, in a 
suitable remoteness, one cannot well tell the difference, 
but with an atmosphere of strange enchantment, beheld 
through which the inhabitants have a propriety of their 
own. This atmosphere is what the American romancer 
needs. In its absence, the beings of imagination are 
compelled to show themselves in the same category as 
actually living mortals ; a necessity that generally 
renders the paint and pasteboard of their composition 
but too painfully discernible. With the idea of par- 
tially obviating this difficulty (the sense of which has 
always pressed very heavily upon him), the author 
has ventured to make free with his old and affection- 
ately remembered home at Brook Farm, as being 
certainly the most romantic episode of his own life, — • 


PREFACE. 


V 


essentially a day-dream, and yet a fact, — and thus 
offering an available foothold between fiction and real- 
ity. Furthermore, the scene was in good keeping 
with the personages whom he desired to introduce. 

These characters, he feels it right to say, are entire- 
ly fictitious. It would, indeed (considering how few 
amiable qualities he distributes among his imaginary 
progeny), be a most grievous wrong to his former 
excellent associates, were the author to allow it to be 
supposed that he has been sketching any of their like- 
nesses. Had he attempted it, they would at least 
have recognized the touches of a friendly pencil. But 
he has done nothing of the kind. The self-concen- 
trated Philanthropist ; the high-spirited Woman, bruis- 
ing herself against the narrow limitations of her sex ; 
the weakly Maiden, whose tremulous nerves endow 
her with sibylline attributes ; the Minor Poet, begin- 
ning life with strenuous aspirations, which die out 
with his youthful fervor ; — all these might have been 
looked for at Brook Farm, but, by some accident 
never made their appearance there. 

The author cannot close his reference to this sub- 
ject, without expressing a most earnest wish that 
some one of the many cultivated and philosophic 
minds, which took an interest in that enterprise, 
might now give the world its history. Ripley, with 
whom rests the honorable paternity of the institution 


VI 


PREFACE. 


Dana, Dwight, Channing, Burton, Parker, for in 
stance, — with others, whom he dares not nane, 
because they veil themselves from the public eye, — 
among these is the ability to convey both the outward 
narrative and the inner truth and spirit of the whole 
affair, together with the lessons which those years of 
thought and toil must have elaborated, for the behoof 
of future experimentalists. Even the brilliant How - 
adji might find as rich a theme in his youthful remi- 
niscences of Brook Farm, and a more novel one, — 
close at hand as it lies, — than those which be haa 
since made so distant a pilgrimage to seek, in Syria 
and along the current of the Nile. 

Qovcoid 'Mass.), Mat, 1852. 


CONTENTS 


L — Old Mooddb 9 

fl. — Blithedale 14 

HI. — A Knot op Dreamers . • . ....20 

IV. — The Supper-table 80 

V. — Until Bed-time ...40 

VL — Coverdale’s Sick-chamber 48 

VH. — The Convalescent 60 

Viil. — A Modern Arcadia 7C 

IX. — Hollingsworth, Zenobia, Priscilla 83 

X. — A Visiter from Town 98 

XI. — The Wood-path .107 

XH. — Coverdale’s Hermitage 118 

Xm. — Zenobia’s Legend ..•••••••••••. 127 

XIV. — Eliot’s Pulpit .140 

XV. — A Crisis •••••• 153 

XVI. — Leave-tarings .163 

XVH. — The Hotel 172 

XV ILL — The Boarding-house .... 181 

XLX. — Zenobia’s Drawing-room • • . • 189 

XX. -They Vanish 198 


CONTENTS. 


<MTL 

PAG» 

XXI. — An Old Acquaintance 204 

XXII. — FaUNTLEROY 213 

XXTTT. — A Village- HALL ••••••••••••• .227 

XXTV. — The Masqueraders 238 

XXV. — The Three together .248 

XXVI. — Zenobia and Coverdale ........... 258 

XXVIL — Midnight ... 266 

XXVTU. — Blithedale Pasture .277 

. . . 285 


XXIX. — Milks Covkrd ale’s Confession . . . 


THE BLITHEDALE ROMANCE 


I. 

OLD HOODIE. 

The evening before my departure for Blithedale, 1 was 
returning to my bachelor apartments, after attending the 
wonderful exhibition of the Veiled Lady, when an elderly 
man, of rather shabby appearance, met me in an obscure 
part of the street. 

“ Mr. Coverdale,” said he, softly, “ can I speak with 
you a moment ? ” 

As I have casually alluded to the Veiled Lady, it may 
rot be amiss to mention, for the benefit of such of my 
headers as are unacquainted with her now forgotten 
celebrity, that she was a phenomenon in the mesmeric 
line ; one of the earliest that had indicated the birth of a 
new science, or the revival of an old humbug. Since 
those times, her sisterhood have grown too numerous to 
attract much individual notice ; nor, in fact, has any one 
of them ever come before the public under such skilfully 
contrived circumstances of stage-effect as those which 
at once mystified and illuminated the remarkable per- 
formances of the lady in question. Now-a-days, in tne 
management of his “subject,” “clairvoyant,” or “me- 
dium,” the exhibitor affects the simplicity and openness 


10 


THE BLITHEDALE ROMANCE. 


of scientific experiment; and even if he piofesa to tread 
a step or two across the boundaries of the spiritual world 
yet carries with him the laws of our actual life, and 
extends them over his preternatural conquests. Twelve 
or fifteen years ago, on the contrary, all the arts of mys- 
terious arrangement, of picturesque disposition, and artis- 
tically contrasted light and shade, were made available, 
in order to set the apparent miracle in the strongest 
attitude of opposition to ordinary facts. In the case of 
the Veiled Lady, moreover, the interest of the spectator 
was further wrought up by the enigma of her identity, 
and an absurd rumor (probably set afloat by the exhib- 
itor, and at one time very prevalent), that a beautiful 
young lady, of family and fortune, was enshrouded 
within the misty drapery of the veil. It was white, 
with somewhat of a subdued silver sheen, like the sunny 
side of a cloud ; and, failing over the wearer from head 
to foot, was supposed to insulate her from the material 
world, from time and space, and to endow her with many 
of the privileges of a disembodied spirit. 

Her pretensions, however, whether miraculous or oth- 
erwise, have little to do with the present narrative; 
except, indeed, that I had propounded, for the Veiled 
Lady’s prophetic solution, a query as to the success of 
our Blithedale enterprise. The response, by the by, was of 
the true Sibylline stamp, — nonsensical in its first aspect, 
yet, on closer study, unfolding a variety of interpreta- 
tions, one of which has certainly accorded with the 
event. I was turning over this riddle in my mind, and 
trying to catch its slippery purport by the tail^ when the 
old man above mentioned intenupted me. 

“ Mr. Coverdale ! — Mr. Coverdale ! ” said he, repeat- 


OLD MOODIE. 


11 


mg my ns me t arise, in order to make up for the hesitat- 
ing. and ineffectual way in which he uttered it. “ I ask 
your pardon, sir, but I hear you are going to Blithedale 
to-morrow.” 

I knew the pale, elderly face, with the red-tipt nose, 
and the patch over one eye ; and likewise saw something 
characteristic in the old fellow’s way of standing under 
the arch a gate, only revealing enough of himself to 
make me recognize him as an acquaintance. He was a 
very shy personage, this Mr. Moodie ; and the trait was 
the more singular, as his mode of getting his bread neces- 
sarily brought him into the stir and hubbub of the world 
more than the generality of men. 

“ Y<*5, Mr. Moodie.” I answered, wondering what 
interest he could take in the fact, “ it is my intention to 
go to Blithedale to-morrow. Can T be of any service to 
you before my departure ? ” 

“ If you pleased, Mr. Coverdale,” said he, “ you might 
co me a very great favor.” 

“ A very great one ? ” repeated I, in a tone that must 
have expressed but little alacrity of beneficence, although 
I was ready to do the old man any amount of kindness 
involving no special trouble to myself. “A very great 
favor, do you say? My time is brief, Mr. Moodie, and 
I have a good many preparations to make. But be good 
enough to tell me what you wish.” 

“Ah, sir,” replied Old Moodie, “I don’t quite like to 
do that ; and, on further thoughts, Mr. Coverdale, per- 
haps 1 had better apply to some older gentleman, or to 
some lady, if you would have the kindness to make me 
Known to one, who may happen to be going to Blithedale. 
ITou are a young man, sir ! ” 


12 


THE, BLITHEDALE ROMANCE. 


“ Does that fact lessen my availability for youi pui^* 
pose ? ” asked I. “ However, if an older man will suit 
you better, there is Mr. Hollingsworth, who has three 
or four years the advantage of me in age, and is a much 
more solid character, and a philanthropist to boot. I am 
only a poet, and, so the critics tell me, no great affair at 
that ! But what can this business be, Mr. Moodie ? It 
begins to interest me ; especially since your hint that a 
lady’s influence might be found desirable. Come, I am 
really anxious to be of service to you.” 

But the old fellow, in his civil and demure manner, 
was both freakish and obstinate ; and he had now taken 
some notion or other into his head that made him hesi- 
tate in his former design. 

“ I wonder, sir,” said he, “ whether you know a lady 
whom they call Zenobia ? ” 

“ Not personally,” I answered, “ although 1 expect 
that pleasure to-morrow, as she has got the start of the 
rest of us, and is already a resident at Blithedale. But 
have you a literary turn, Mr. Moodie? or have you 
taken up the advocacy of women’s rights ? or what else 
can have interested you in this lady ? Zenobia, by the 
by, as I suppose you know, is merely her public name ; 
a sort of mask in which she comes before the world, 
retaining all the privileges of privacy, — a contrivance, 
in short, like the white drapery of the Veiled Lady, only 
a little more transparent. But it is late. Will you tell 
me what I can do for you ? ” 

“ Please to excuse me to-night, Mr. Coverdale,’ said 
Moodie. “ You are very kind; but I am afraid I have 
troubled you, when, after all, there may be no need 
Perhaps, with your good leave, I will come to your lodg- 


OLD MOODIE. 


13 


mgs to-morrow morning, before you set out for Blithe- 
dale. I wish you a good-night, sir, and beg pardon for 
stopping you.” 

And so he slipt away ; and, as he did not show him- 
self the next morning, it was only through subsequent 
events that I ever arrived at a plausible conjecture 
as to what his business could have been. Arriving at 
my room, I threw a lump of cannel coal upon the grate, 
lighted a cigar, and spent an hour in musings of e^ery 
hue, from the brightest to the most sombre ; being, in 
truth, not so very confident as at some former periods 
that this final step, which would mix me up irrevocably 
with the Blithedale affair, was the wisest that could pos- 
sibly be taken. It was nothing short of midnight when 
I went to bed, after drinking a glass of particularly 
fine sherry, on which I used to pride myself, in those 
days. It was the very last bottle; and I finished it, 
with a friend, the next forenoon, before setting out fo? 
B ithedale. 


II. 

BLITIIEDALE. 


There can hardly remaip me (who am really 
getting to be a frosty bachelor, with another white hair, 
every week or so, in my moustache), there can hardly 
flicker up again so cheery a blaze upon the hearth, as 
that which I remember, the next day, at Blithedale. It 
was a tvood-fire, in the parlor of an old farm-house, on 
an April afternoon, but with the fitful gusts of a win- 
try snow-storm roaring in the chimney. Vividly does 
that fireside re-create itself, as I rake away the ashes 
from the embers in my memory, and blow them up with 
a sigh, for lack of more inspring breath. Vividly, fol 
an instant, but, anon, with the dimmest gleam, and w’th 
]ust as little fervency for my heart as for my finger- 
ends ! The stanch oaken logs were long ago burnt 
out. Their genial glow must be represented, if at all 
by the merest phosphoric glimmer, like that which 
exudes, rather than shines, from damp fragments of 
decayed trees, deluding the benighted wanderer through 
a forest. Around such chill mockery of a fire some 
few of us might sit on the withered leaves, spreading 
out each a palm towards the imaginary warmth, and 
talk over our exploded scheme for beginning the life of 
Paradise anew. 

Paradise, indeed! Nobody else in the world, I am 
bold to affirm -—nobody, at least, in our bleak little 


BLITHE DALE. 


15 


world of New England, — had dreamed of Paradise 
that day, except as the pole suggests the tropic. Nor, 
with such materials as were at hai d, could the most 
skilful architect have constructed any better imitation of 
Eve’s bower than might be seen in the snow-hut of an 
Esquimaux. But we made a summer of it, in spite of 
the wild drifts. 

It was an April day, as already hinted, and well towards 
the middle of the month. When morning dawned 
upon me, in town, its temperature was mild enough to 
be pronounced even balmy, by a lodger, like myself, 
in one of the midmost houses of a brick block, — each 
house partaking of the warmth of all the rest, besides 
the sultriness of its individual furnace-heat. But, 
“towards noon, there had come snow, driven along the 
street by a north-easterly blast, and whitening the roofs 
and side-walks with a business-like perseverance that 
would have done credit to our severest January tempest. 
It set about its task apparently as much in earnest as 
if it had . been guaranteed from a thaw for months to 
come. The greater, surely, was my heroism, when, puff- 
ing out a final whiff of cigar-smoke, I quitted my cosey 
pair of bachelor-rooms, — with a good fire burning in the 
grate, and a closet right at hand, where there was still a 
bottle or two in the champagne-basket, and a residuum 
of claret in a box, — quitted, I say, these comfortable 
quarters, and plunged into the heart of the pitiless snow- 
storm, in quest of a better life. 

The better life ! Possibly, it would hardly look so, 
now ; it is enough if it looked so then. The greatest 
obstacle to being heroic is the doubt whether one may 
not be going to prove one’s self a fool; the truest heroism 


16 


THE BLITHEDALE ROMANCE 


is, to resist tfte doubt ; and the profoundest wisdom to 
know when it ought to be resisted, and when to be 
obeyed. 

Yet, after all, let us acknowledge it wiser, if not more 
sagacious, to follow out one’s day-dream to its natural con- 
summation, although, if the vision have been worth the 
having, it is certain never to be consummated otherwise 
than by a failure. And what of that ? Its airiest frag- 
ments, impalpable as they may be, will possess a value 
that lurks not in the most ponderous realities of any 
practicable scheme. They are not the rubbish of the 
mind. Whatever else I may repent of, therefore, let it 
be reckoned neither among my sins nor follies that I 
once had faith and force enough to form generous hopes 
of the world’s destiny, — yes ! — and to do what in me 
lay for their accomplishment; even to the extent of 
quitting a warm fireside, flinging away a freshly-lighted 
cigar, and travelling far beyond the strike of city clocks, 
through a drifting snow-storm. 

There were four of us who rode together through the 
storm ; and Hollingsworth, who had agreed to be of the 
number, was accidentally delayed, and set forth at a later 
hour alone. As we threaded the streets, I remember 
how the buildings on either side seemed to press too 
closely upon us, insomuch that our mighty hearts found 
barely room enough to throb between them. The snow- 
fall, too, looked inexpressibly dreary (I had almost 
cabled it dingy), coming down through an atmosphere 
of city smoke, and alighting on the side-walk only to be 
moulded into the impress of somebody’s patched boot or 
ovei-shoe. Thus the track of an old conventionalism 
was visible on what was freshest from the sky. Rut 


BLITHE r ALE. 


17 


^hen wo left the pavements, and our n uffled hoof* 
tramps beat upon a desolate extent of country road, and 
were effaced by the unfettered blast as soon as stamped, 
then there was better air to breathe. Air that had 
not been breathed once and again ! air that had not 
been spoken into words of falsehood, formality and 
error, like all the air of the dusky city ! 

“ How pleasant it is ! ” remarked I, while the snow- 
tlakes flew into my mouth the moment it was opened. 
“ How very mild and balmy is this country air ! ” 

“ Ah, Coverdale, don’t laugh at what little enthusiasm 
you have left! ” said one of my companions. “ I main- 
tain that this nitrous atmosphere is really exhilarating , 
and, at any rate, we can never call ourselves regen- 
erated men till a February north-easter shall be as grate- 
ful to us as the softest breeze of June.” 

So we all of us took courage, riding fleetly and mer- 
rily along, by stone-fences that were half-buried in the 
wave-like drifts ; and through patches of woodland, 
where the tree-trunks opposed a snow-encrusted side 
towards the north-east; and within ken of deserted 
villas, with no foot-prints in their avenues ; and past 
scattered dwellings, whence puffed the smoke of country 
fires, strongly impregnated with the pungent aroma of 
burning peat. Sometimes, encountering a traveller, we 
shouted a friendly greeting ; and he, unmuffling his ears 
to the bluster and the snow-spray, and listening eagerly, 
appeared to think our courtesy worth less than the 
trouble which it cost him. The churl ! He understood 
the shrill whistle of the blast, but had no intelligence 
for our blithe tones of brotherhood. This lack of faith 
in our cordial sympathy, on the traveller’s part, was one 
o 


THE BLITHEDALE ROMANCE. 

among the innumerable tokens how difficult a task we 
nad in hand, for the reformation of the world. We rode 
on, however, with still unflagging spirits, and made such 
good companionship with the tempest that, at our jour- 
ney’s end, we professed ourselves almost loth to bid the 
rude blusterer good-by. But, to own the truth, I was 
little better than an icicle, and began to be suspicious 
that I had caught a fearful cold. 

And now we were seated by the brisk fireside of the 
old farm-house, — the same fire that glimmers so faintly 
among my reminiscences at the beginning of this chap- 
ter. There we sat, with the snow melting out of our 
hair and beards, and our faces all a-blaze, what with the 
past inclemency and present warmth. It was, indeed, a 
right good fire that we found awaiting us, built up ot 
great, rough logs, and knotty limbs, and splintered frag 
ments, of an oak-tree, such as farmers are wont to keep 
for their own hearths, — since these crooked and unman- 
ageable boughs could never be measured into merchanta- 
ble cords for the market. A family of the old Pilgrims 
might have swung their kettle over precisely such a fire 
as this, only, no doubt, a bigger one ; and, contrasting it 
with my coal-grate, I felt so much the more that we had 
transported ourselves a world-wide distance from the 
system of society that shackled us at breakfast-time. 

Good, comfortable Mrs. Foster (the wife of stout Silas 
Foster, who was to manage the farm, at a fair stipend, 
and be our tutor in the art of husbandry) bade us a 
hearty welcome. At her back — a back of generous 
breadth — appeared two young women, smiling most 
hospitably, but looking rather awkward withal, as not 
well knowing what was to be their position in our new 


BLITHE DALE. 


9 


arrangement of the world. We shook hands affection- 
ately, all round, and congratulated ourselves that the 
blessed state of brotherhood and sisterhood, at which we 
aimed, might fairly be dated from this moment. Our 
greetings were hardly concluded, when the door opened, 
and Zenobia, — whom I had never before seen, important 
as was her place in our enterprise, — Zenobia entered 
the parlor. 

This (as the reader, if at all acquainted with our lit- 
erary biography, need scarcely be told) was not her re& 
name. She had assumed it, in the first instance, as her 
magazine signature ; and, as it accorded well with some- 
thing imperial which her friends attributed to this lady’s 
figure and deportment, they, half-laughingly, adopted it 
in their familiar intercourse with her. She took the 
appellation in good part, and even encouraged its con 
stant use ; which, in fact, was thus far appropriate, that 
our Zenobia — however humble looked her new philoso- 
phy — had as much native pride as any queen would 
have known what to do with 


III. 

A KNOT OF DREAMERS. 


Zenobia bade us welcome, in a fine, frank- mellc'W 
voice, and gave each of us her hand, which was verv 
soft and warm. She had something appropriate, I recol- 
lect, to say to every individual ; and what she said to 
myself was this : 

“ I have long wished to know you, Mr. Coverdale, and 
to thank you for your beautiful poetry, some of which I 
have learned by heart; or, rather, it has stolen into my 
memory, without my exercising any choice or volition 
about the matter. Of course — permit me to say — you 
do not think of relinquishing an occupation in which 
you have done yourself so much credit. I would almost 
rather give you up as an associate, than that the world 
should lose one of its true poets ! ” 

“ Ah, no ; there will not be the slightest danger of 
that, especially after this inestimable praise from Zeno- 
bia,” said I, smiling, and blushing, no doubt, with excess 
of pleasure. “I hope, on the contrary, now to produce 
something that shall really deserve to be called poetry, 
— true, strong, natural, and sweet, as is the life which 
we are going to lead, — something that shall have the 
notes of wild birds twittering through it, or a strain like 
the wind-anthems in the woods, as the case may be.” 

“ Is it irksome to you to hear your own verses sung ? ” 
asked Zenobia, with a gracious smile. “ If so, I am 


KNOT OF DREAMERS. 


2 \ 


very sorry, for you will certainly hear me singing them, 
sometimes, in the summer evenings.” 

“ Of all things,” answered I, “ that is what will delight 
me most.” 

While this passed, and while she spoke to my com 
panions, I was taking note of Zenobia’s aspect ; and h 
impressed itself on me so distinctly, that I can now sum 
mon her up, like a ghost, a little wanner than the life 
but otherwise identical with it. She was dressed as 
simply as possible, in an American print (I think the 
dry goods people call it so), but with a silken kerchief, 
between which and her gown there was one glimpse of 
a white shoulder. It struck me as a great piece of good 
fortune that there should be just that glimpse. Her hair, 
which was dark, glossy, and of singular abundance, was 
put up rather soberly and primly, without curls, or other 
ornament, except a single flower. It was an exotic, of 
rare beauty, and as fresh as if the hot-house gardener 
had just dipt it from the stem. That flower has struck 
deep root into my memory. I can both see it and smell 
it, at this moment. So brilliant, so rare, so costly, as it 
must have been, and yet enduring only for a day, it was 
more indicative of the pride and pomp which had a lux- 
uriant growth in Zenobia’s character than if a great 
diamond had sparkled among her hair. 

Her hand, though very soft, was larger than most women 
would like to have, or than they could afford to have, 
though not a whit too large in proport on with the spa- 
cious plan of Zenobia’s entire development. It did one 
good to see a fine intellect (as hers really was, although, 
its natural tendency lay in another direction than 
towards literature) so fitly cased. She was, indeed, an 


22 


THE BLITHEDALE ROMANCE. 


admirable figure of a woman, just on the hither verge 
of her richest maturity, with a combination of features 
which it is safe to call remarkably beautiful, even if some 
fastidious persons might pronounce them a little defi- 
cient in softness and delicacy. But we find enough of 
those attributes everywhere. Preferable — by way of 
variety, at least — was Zenobia’s bloom, health, and 
vigor, which she possessed in such overflow that a man 
might well have fallen in love with her for their sake 
only. In her quiet moods, she seemed rather indolent ; 
but when really in earnest, particularly if there were a 
spice of bitter feeling, she grew all alive, to her finger- 
tips. 

“ I am the first comer,” Zenobia went on to say, while 
her smile beamed warmth upon us all ; “ so I take the 
part of hostess, lor to-day, and welcome you as if to my 
own fireside. You shall be my guests, too, at supper. 
To-morrow, if you please, we will be brethren and sis- 
ters, and begin our new life from daybreak.” 

“ Have we our various parts assigned ? ” asked some 
one. 

“ O, we of the softer sex,” responded Zenobia, with 
her mellow, almost broad laugh, — most delectable to 
hear, but not in the least like an ordinary woman’s 
laugh, — “ we women (there are four of us here already) 
will take the domestic and indoor part of the business, as 
a matter of course. To bake, to boil, to roast, to fry, to 
stew, — to wash, and iron, and scrub, and sweep, — and, 
at our idler intervals, to repose ourselves on knitting ana 
sewing, — these, I suppose, must be feminine occupa- 
tions, for the present. By and by, perhaps, when ou. 
md'vidual adaptations begin to develop themselves it 


A KNOT OF DREAMERS. 


23 


may be that some of us who wear the petticoat will go 
a-field, and leave the weaker brethren to take our place i 
in the iritohjn.” 

“ What a pity, I remarked, “ that the kitchen, and 
the house-work generally, cannot be left out of our sys- 
tem altogether! It is odd enough that the kind of 
labor which falls to the lot of women is just that which 
chiefly distinguishes artificial life — the life of degene- 
rated mortals — from the life of Paradise. Eve had no 
dinner-pot, and no clothes to mend, and no washing- 
day.” 

“ I am afraid,” said Zenobia, with mirth gleaming out 
of her eyes, “ we shall find some difficulty in adopting 
the Paradisiacal system for at least a month to come. 
Look at that snow-drift sweeping past the window ! 
Are there any figs ripe, do you think ? Have the pine- 
apples been gathered, to-day ? Would you like a bread- 
fruit, or a cocoa-nut ? Shall I run out and pluck you 
some roses ? No, no, Mr. Coverdale ; the only flower 
hereabouts is the one in my hair, which I got out of a 
green-house this morning. As for the garb of Eden.” 
added she, shivering playfully, “ I shall not assume it 
till after May-day ! ” 

Assuredly, Zenobia could not have intended it ; — the 
fault must have been entirely in my imagination. But 
these last words, together with something in her man- 
ner, irresistibly brought up a picture of that fine, per- 
fectly developed figure, in Eve’s earliest garment. Her 
free, careless, generous modes of expression, often had 
this effect, of creating images, which, though pure, are 
hardly felt to be quite decorous when bom of a thought 
that passes between man and woman* I imputed it, at 


*>4 


THE BLITHE DALE ROMANCE. 


that time, to Zenobia’s noble courage, conscious of no 
harm, and scorning the petty restraints which take the 
life and color out of other women’s conversation. There 
was another peculiarity about her. We seldom meei, 
with women, now-a-days, and in this country, who 
impress us as being women at all ; — their sex fades 
away, and goes for nothing, in ordinary intercourse. 
Not so with Zenobia. One felt an influence breathing 
out of her such as we might suppose to come from Eve, 
when she was just made, and her Creator brought her 
to Adam, saying, “Behold! here is a woman!” Not 
that I would convey the idea of especial gentleness, 
grace, modesty and shyness, but of a certain warm and 
rich characteristic, which seems, for the most part, to 
have been refined away out of the feminine system. 

“ And now,” continued Zenobia, “ I must go and help 
get supper. Do you think you can be content, instead 
of figs, pine-apples, and all the other delicacies of Adam’s 
supper-table, with tea nd toast, and a certain modest 
supply of ham and tongue, which, with the instinct of a 
housewife, I brought hither in a basket? And there 
shall be bread and milk, too, if the innocence of your 
taste demands it.” 

The whole sisterhood now went about their domestic 
avocations, utterly declining our offers to assist, further 
than by bringing wood, for the kitchen-fire, from a huge 
pile m the back yard. After heaping up more than a 
sufficient quantity, we returned to the sitting-room, drew 
our chairs close to the hearth, and began to talk over 
our prospects. Soon, with a tremendous stamping in 
the entry, appeared Silas Foster, lank, stalwart, uncouth, 
and griiy-beardcd. He came from foddering the cattle 


A KNOT OF JlKEAMEKS. 


25 


in the barn, and from the field, where he had leen 
ploughing, until the depth of the snow rendered it im- 
possible to draw a furrow. He greeted us in pretty 
much the same tone as if he were speaking to his oxen, 
took a quid from his iron tobacco-box, pulled off his wet 
cow-hide boots, and sat down before the fire in his 
stocking-feet. The steam arose from his soaked gar- 
ments, so that the stout yeoman looked vaporous and 
spectre-like. 

“Well, folks,” remarked Silas, “you’ll be wishing 
yourselves back to town again, if this weather holds.” 

And, true enough, there was a look of gloom, as the 
twilight fell silently and sadly out of the sky, its gray 
or sable flakes intermingling themselves with the fast 
viescending snow. The storm, in its evening aspect, 
was decidedly dreary. It seemed to have arisen for our 
especial behoof, — a symbol of the cold, desolate, dis- 
trustful phantoms that invariably haunt the mind, on the 
eve of adventurous enterprises, to warn us back within 
the boundaries of ordinary life. 

But our courage did not quail. We would not allow 
ourselves to be depressed by the snow-drift trailing past 
the window, any more than if it had been the sigh of a 
•summer wind among rustling boughs. There have been 
few brighter seasons for us than that. If e\er men 
might lawfully dream awake, and give utterance to their 
wildest visions without dread of laughter or scorn on 
the part of the audience, — yes, and speak of earthly 
happiness, for themselves and mankind, as an object tc 
be hopefully striven for, and probably attained, — we 
who made that little semi-circle round the blazing fire, 
were those very men. We had left the rus + y ir<m 


2tf THE BL1THEDALE ROMANCE. 

frame-work of society behind us ; we had broken through 
many hindran:es that are powerful enough to keep most 
people on the weary tread-mill of the established system, 
even while they feel its irksomeness almost as intolera- 
ble as we did. We had stept down from the pulpit ; we 
had flung aside the pen ; we had shut up the ledger ; we 
had thrown off that sweet, bewitching, enervating indo- 
lence, which is better, after all, than most of the enjoy- 
ments within mortal grasp. It was our purpose — a 
generous one, certainly, and absurd, no doubt, in full 
proportion with its generosity — to give up whatever we 
had heretofore attained, for the sake of showing mankind 
the example of a life governed by other than the false 
and cruel principles on which human society has all 
along been based. 

And, first of all, we had divorced ourselves from 
pride, and were striving to supply its place with familiar 
love. We meant to lessen the laboring man’s great 
burthen of toil, by performing our due share of it at the 
cost of our own thews and sinews. We sought our 
profit by mutual aid, instead of wresting it by the 
strong hand from an enemy, or filching it craftily 
from those less shrewd than ourselves (if, indeed, there 
were any such in New England), or winning it by self- 
ish competition with a neighbor ; in one or another of 
which fashions every son of woman both perpetrates and 
suffers his share of the common evil, whether he chooses 
it or no. And, as the basis of our institution, we pur- 
posed to offer up the earnest toil of our bodies, as a 
prayer no less than an effort for the advancement of oui 
race. 

Therefore, if we built splendid castles (phalansteries 


A KNOT OF DREAMERS. 


21 


perhaps they might be more fitly called), and pictured 
beautiful scenes, among the fervid coals of the hearth 
around which we were clustering, and if all went to rack 
with the crumbling embers, and have never since arisen 
out of the ashes, let us take to ourselves no shame. In 
my own behalf, I rejoice that I could once think better 
of the woild’s improvability than it deserved. It is a 
mistake into which men seldom fall twice in a lifetime ; 
or, if so, the rarer and higher is the nature that can thus 
magnanimously persist in error. 

Stout Silas Foster mingled little in our conversation ; 
but when he did speak, it was very much to some 
practical purpose. For instance : 

“ Which man among you,” quoth he, “ is the best 
judge of swine? Some of us must go to the next 
Brighton fair, and buy half a dozen pigs.” 

Pigs ! Good heavens ! had we come out from among 
the swinish multitude for this ? And, again, in refer- 
ence to some discussion about raising early vegetables 
for the market : 

“We shall never make any hand at market-garden 
ing,” said Silas Foster, “unless the women folks will 
undertake to do all the weeding. We haven’t team 
enough for that and the regular farm-work, reckoning 
three of you city folks as worth one common field-hand. 
No, no ; I tell you, we should have to get up a little 
too early in the morning, to compete with the market- 
gardeners round Boston.” 

It struck me as rather odd, that one of the first ques- 
tions raised, after our separation from the greedy, strug- 
gling, self-seeking world, should relate to the possibility 
getting th? advantage over the outside barbarians i» 


*29 1Hfc BLITHEDALE ROMANCE 

their own field of labor. But, to own the truth, I very 
soon became sensible that, as regarded society at large, 
we stood in a position of new hostility, rather than new 
brotherhood. Nor could this fail to be the case, in some 
degree, until the bigger and better half of society should 
range itself on our side. Constituting so pitiful a 
minority as now, we were inevitably estranged from the 
rest of mankind in pretty fair proportion with the strict- 
ness of our mutual bond among ourselves. 

This dawning idea, however, was driven back into 
my inner consciousness by the entrance of Zenobia. 
She came with the welcome intelligence that supper 
was on the table. Looking at herself in the glass, and 
perceiving that her one magnificent flower had grown 
rather languid (probably by being exposed to the fer- 
vency of the kitchen fire), she flung it on the floor, as 
unconcernedly as a village girl would throw away a 
faded violet. The action seemed proper to her charac- 
ter, although, methought, it would still more have befitted 
the bounteous nature of this beautiful woman to scatter 
fresh flowers from her hand, and to revive faded ones by 
her touch. Nevertheless, it was a singular but irresisti- 
ble effect; the presence of Zenobia caused our heroic 
enterprise to show like an illusion, a masquerade, a 
pastoral, a counterfeit Arcadia, in w'hich we grown-up 
men and women were making a play-day of the years 
that were given us to live in. I tried to analyze this 
impression, but not with much success. 

“ It really vexes me,” observed Zenobia, as we left the 
room, “ that Mr. Hollingsworth should be such a laggard 
l should not have thought him at all the sort of person 
to be turned back by a puff of contrary wind, or a few 
snow-flakes drifting into his face.’' 


A KNOT Of DREAMERS. 


29 


‘Do you know Hollingsworth personally?” I inquired. 

“No; oniy as an auditor — auditress, I mean — of 
some of his lectures,” said she. “ What a voice he 
has ! and what a man he is ! Yet not so much an 
intellectual man, I should say, as a great heart; a*, 
least, he moved me more deeply than I think myself 
capable of being moved, except by the stioke of a true, 
strong heart against my own. It is a sad pity that he 
should have devoted his glorious powers to such a 
grimy, unbeautiful and positively hopeless object as 
this reformation of criminals, about which he makes 
himself and his wretchedly small audiences so very 
miserable. To tell you a secret, I never could tolerate 
a philanthropist before. Could you ? ” 

* By no means,” I answered ; “ neithe7 can I now.” 

“ They are, indeed, an odiously disagreeable set of 
mortals,” continued Zenobia. “ I should like Mr. Hol- 
lingsworth a great deal better, if the philanthropy had 
been left out. At all events, as a mere matter of taste, 
I wish he would let the bad people alone, and try to 
benefit those who are not already past his help. Do 
you suppose he will be content to spend his life, or even 
a few months of it, among tolerably virtuous and com- 
fortable individuals, like ourselves?” 

“ Upon my word, I doubt it,” said I. “ If we wish to 
Keep him with us, we must systematically commit, at 
least, one crime apiece ! Mere peccadilloes will not sat- 
isfy him.” 

Zenobia turned, sidelong, a strange kind of n glance 
upon me ; but, before I could make out what it meant, 
we had entered the kitchen, where, in accordance witn 
the rustic simplicity of our new life, the suppe .-table 
was spread. 


IV. 

THE SUPPER-TABLE. 

The pleasant fire-light! I must still kee; harping 
on it. 

The kitchen-hearth had an old-fashioned breadth, 
depth and spaciousness, far within which lay what 
seemed the butt of a good-sized oak-tree, with the moist- 
ure bubbling merrily out of both ends. It was npw 
half an hour beyond dusk. The blaze from an armful 
of substantial sticks, rendered more combustible by 
brush-wood and pine, flickered powerfully on the smoke- 
blackened walls, and so cheered our spirits that we 
cared not what inclemency might rage and roar on the 
other side of our illuminated windows. A yet sultrier 
warmth was bestowed by a goodly quantity of peat, 
which was crumbling to white ashes among the burning 
brands, and incensed the kitchen with its not ungrateful 
fragrance. The exuberance of this household fire 
would alone have sufficed to bespeak us no true farm- 
ers ; for the New England yeoman, if he have the mis- 
fortune to dwell within practicable distance of a wood- 
market, is as niggardly of each stick as if it were a bar 
of California gold. 

But it was fortunate for us, on that wintry eve of our 
untried life, to enjoy the warm and radiant luxury of a 
somewhat too abundant fire. If it served no other pur- 
pose it made the men look so full of youth, warm blood. 


THE SUPPER-TABLE. 


3 * 


and hope, and the women — such of them, at least, as were 
anywise convertible by its magic — so very beautiful, that 
I would cheerfully have spent my last dollar to prolong 
the bhze. As for Zenobia, there was a glow in her 
cheeks that made me think of Pandora, fresh from Vul- 
can’s workshop, and full of the celestial warmth by dint 
of which he had tempered and moulded her. 

“ Take your places, my dear friends all,” cried she ; 
“ seat yourselves without ceremony, and you shall be 
made happy with such tea as not many of the world’s 
working-people, except yourselves, will find in their cups 
to-night. After this one supper, you may drink butter- 
milk, if you please. To-night we will quaff this nectar, 
which, I assure you, could not be bought with gold.” 

We all sat down, — grisly Silas Foster, his rotund 
helpmate, and the two bouncing handmaidens, included; 
— and looked at one another in a friendly but rather 
awkward way. It was the first practical trial of our 
theories of equal brotherhood and sisterhood ; and we 
people of superior cultivation and refinement (for as such, 
I presume, we unhesitatingly reckoned ourselves) felt as 
:'f something were already accomplished towards the mil- 
lennium of love. The truth is, however, that the labor- 
ing-oar was with our unpolished companions ; it being 
far easier to condescend than to accept of condescension. 
Neither did I refrain from questioning, in secret, 
whether some of us — and Zenobia among the rest — 
would so quietly have taken our places among these 
good people, save for the cherished consciousness that it 
was not by necessity, but choice. Though we saw fit to 
drink our tea out of earthen cups to-night, and in 
earthen company, it was at our own option to use pic- 


32 


THE B1.ITHEDALE KOMANCE. 


tured porcelain and handle silver forks again to-morrow 
This same salvo, as to the power of regaining our forme: 
position, contributed much, I fear, to the equanimity 
with which we subsequently bore many of the hard- 
ships and humiliations of a life of toil. If ever I have 
deserved (which has not often been the case, and, I think, 
never), but if ever I did deserve to be soundly cuffed by 
a fellow-mortal, for secretly putting weight upon some 
imaginary social advantage, it must have been while I 
was striving to prove myself ostentatiously his equal, 
and no more. It was while I sat beside him on his cob- 
bler’s bench, or clinked my hoe against his own in the 
corn-field, or broke the same crust of bread, my earth- 
grimed hand to his, at our noon-tide lunch. The 
poor, proud man shoui l look at both sides of sympathy 
iike this. 

The silence which followed upon our sitting down to 
table grew rather oppressive ; indeed, it was hardly 
broken by a word, during the first round of Zenobia’s 
fragrant tea. 

“ I hope,” said 1, at last, “ that our blazing windows 
fvill be visible a great way off. There is nothing so 
pleasant and encouraging to a solitary traveller, on a 
stormy night, as a flood of fire-light seen amid the 
gloom. These ruddy window-panes cannot fail tc cheer 
the hearts of all that look at them. Are they not warm 
and bright with the beacon-fire which we have kindled 
for humanity ? ” 

“The blaze of that brush-wood will only last a 
minute or two longer,” observed Silas Foster; but 
whether he meant to insinuate that our moral illumina- 
tion would have as briei a term, I cannot say. 


THE SUPPER-TABLE. 


s * 

“ Meantime, said Zenobia, “ it may seive to guide 
some wayfarer to a shelter.” 

And, just as she said this, there came a knock at tho 
house-door. 

“ There is one of the world’s wayfarers,” said I. 

“Ay, ay, just so!” quoth Silas Foster. “Our hre- 
aght will draw stragglers, just as a candle draws dor- 
bugs, on a summer night.” 

Whether to enjoy a dramatic suspense, or that we 
were selfishly contrasting our own comfort ’ with the 
chill and dreary situation of the unknown person at the 
threshold, or that some of us city-folk felt a little 
startled at the knock which came so unseasonably, 
through night and storm, to the door of the lonely farm- 
house, — so it happened, that nobody, for an instant or 
two, arose to answer the summons. Pretty soon, there 
came another knock. The first had been moderately 
mud; the second was smitten so forcibly that the 
knuckles of the applicant must have left their mark in 
the door-panel. 

“ He knocks as if he had a right to come in,” said 
Zenobia, laughing. “And what are we thinking of? It 
must be Mr. Hollingsworth !” 

Hereupon, I went to the door, unbolted, and flung it 
wide open. There, sure enough, stood Hollingsworth, 
his shaggy great-coat all covered with snow, so that he 
looked quite as much like a polar bear as a modern 
philanthropist. 

“ Sluggish hospitality this ! ” said he, in those deep 
tones of his, which seemed to come out of a chest as 
capacious as a barrel. “ It would have served you 
right if I had lain down and spent the night m the door* 
3 


THE BlATHEDALE ROMANCE. 


34 


step, just for the sake of putting you to shame. Bui 
here is a guest who will need a warmer and softer bed. 

And, stepping back to the wagon in which he had jour* 
neyed hither, Hollingsworth received into his arms and 
deposited on the door-step a figure enveloped in a cloak. 
It was evidently a woman; or, rather, — judging from 
the ease with which he lifted her, and the little space 
which she seemed to fill in his arms, — a slim and 
unsubstantial girl. As she showed some hesitation 
about entering the door, Hollingsworth, with his usual 
directness and lack of ceremony, urged her forward, not 
merely within the entry, but into the warm and stronglv 
lighted kitchen. 

“ Who is this ? ” whispered I, remaining behind *vith 
him while he was taking off his great-coat. 

“ Who ? Really, I don’t know,” answered Hollings- 
worth, looking at me with some surprise. “ It is a young 
person who belongs here, however ; and, no doubt, she 
has been expected. Zenobia, or some of the women- 
folks, can tell you all about it.” 

“ I think not,” said I, glancing towards the new comer 
and the other occupants of the kitchen. “ Nobody 
seems to welcome her. I should hardly judge that she 
was an expected guest.” 

“Well, well,” said Hollingsworth, quietly. “We’ll 
make it right.” 

The stranger, or whatever she were, remained stand- 
ing precisely on that spot of the kitchen floor to which 
Hollingsworth’s kindly hand had impelled her. The 
cloak falling partly off, she was seen to be a very young 
woman, dressed in a poor but decent gown, made high 
in the nsck, and without any regard to fashion or smart* 


THE SUPPER-TABLE. 


35 


ness. Her krown hair fell down from benea th a hood, 
not in curls, but with only a slight wave ; her face was 
of a wan, almost sicldy hue, betokening habitual seclu- 
sion from the sun and free atmosphere, like a flower- 
shrub that had done its best to blossom in too scanty 
light. To complete the pitiableness of her aspect, she 
shivered, either with cold, or fear, or nervous excitement, 
so that you might have beheld her shadow vibrating on 
the fire-lighted wall. In short, there has seldom been 
seen so depressed and sad a figure as this young girl’s ; 
and it was hardly possible to help being angry with her, 
from mere despair of doing anything for her comfort. 
The fantasy occurred to me that she was some desolate 
kind of a creature, doomed to wander about in snow- 
storms ; and that, though the ruddiness of our window- 
panes had tempted her into a human dwelling, she 
would not remain long enough to melt the icicles out of 
ner hair. 

Another conjecture likewise came into my mind. 
Recollecting Hollingsworth’s sphere of philanthropic 
action, I deemed it possible that he might have brought 
one of his guilty patients, to be wrought upon, and 
•.restored to spiritual health, by the pure influences which 
our mode of life would create. 

Ai yet, the girl had not stirred. She stood near the 
door, fixing a pair of large, brown, melancholy eyes upon 
Zenobia, — only upon Zenobia! — she evidently saw 
nothing else in the room, save that bright, fair, rosy, 
beautiful woman. It was the strangest look I ever wit- 
nessed ; long a mystery to me, and forever a memory. 
Once she seemed about to move forward and greet her, 
- 1 know not with what warmth, or with what words 4 


36 


THE BLITHEPALE EOMAHCK 


— bat, .anally, instead of doing so, she drooped. down 
upon her knees, clasped her hands, and gazed piteously 
into Zenobia’s face. Meeting no kindly reception, her 
head fell on her bosom. 

I never thoroughly forgave Zenobia for her conduct 
on this occasion. But women are always more cautious 
in their casual hospitalities than men. 

“ What does the girl mean ? ” cried she, in rather a 
sharp tone. “ Is she crazy ? Has she no tongue ? ” 

And here Hollingsworth stepped forward. 

“No wonder if the poor child’s tongue is frozen in her 
mouth,” said he, — and I think he positively frowned at 
Zenobia. “ The very heart will be frozen in her bosom, 
unless you women can warm it, among you, with the 
warmth that ought to be in your own ! ” 

Hollingsworth’s appearance was very striking at this 
moment. He was then about thirty years old, but looked 
several years older, with his great shaggy head, his 
heavy brow, his dark complexion, his abundant beard, 
and the rude strength with which his features seemed to 
have been hammered out of iron, rather than chiselled 
or moulded from any finer or softer material. His 
figure was not tall, but massive and brawny, and well 
oefitting his original occupation, which — as the reader 
probably knows — was that of a blacksmith. As for 
external polish, or mere courtesy of manner, he never 
possessed more than a tolerably educated bear ; although, 
in his gentler moods, there was a tenderness in his voice, 
eyes, mouth, in his gesture, and in every indescribable 
manifestation, which few men could resist, and no 
woman. But he now looked stern and reproachfid ; and 
it was with that inauspicious meaning in h % glance 


THE SUPFEE -TABLE. 


zr 


rfiM Hollingsworth first met Zenobia ’s eyes ; and began 
his influence upon her life. 

To my surprise, Zenobia — of whose haughty spirit 1 
had been told so many examples — absolutely changed 
color, and seemed mortified and confused. 

“ You do not quite do me justice, Mr. Hollingsworth,” 
said she, almost humbly. “ I am willing to be kind to 
the poor girl. Is she a protegee of yours ? What can 1 
do for her ? ” 

“ Have you anything to ask of this lady ?” said Hol- 
lingsworth, kindly, to the girl. “ I remember you 
mentioned her name before we left town.” 

“ Only that she will shelter me,” replied the girl, 
tremulously. “ Only that she will let me be always 
near he \” 

“ Wed, indeed,” exclaimed Zenobia, recovering her- 
self, and laughing, “ this is an adventure, and well 
worthy to be the first incident in our life of love and 
free-heartedness ! But I accept it, for the present, with- 
out further question, — only,” added she, “ it would be a 
convenience if we knew your name.” 

“ Priscilla,” said the girl ; and it appeared to me that 
she hesitated whether to add anything more, and decided 
in the negative. “ Pray do not ask me my other name, 
• — at least, not yet, — if you will be so kind to a forlorn 
creature.” 

Priscilla ! — Priscilla ! I repeated the name to myself, 
three or four times ; and, in that little space, this quaint 
and prim cognomen had so amalgamated itself with my 
idea of the girl, that it seemed as if no other name could 
have adhered to her for a moment. Heretofore, the poor 
thing had not shed any tears; but now that she %ind 


THE BLITHE DA LE ROMANCE. 


herself received, and at least temporarily established, the 
big drops began to ooze out from beneath her eyelids, as 
if she were full of them. Perhaps it showed the iron 
substance of my heart, that I could not help smiling as 
this odd scene of unknown and unaccountable calamity 
into which our cheerful party had been entrapped, wit*' 
out the liberty of choosing whether to sympathize or no 
Hollingsworth’s behavior was certainly a great dea. 
more creditable than mine. 

“ Let us not pry further into her secrets,” he said t( 
Zenobia and the rest of us, apart, — and his dark, shaggy 
face looked really beautiful with its expression of 
thoughtful benevolence. “ Let us conclude that Provi- 
dence has sent her to us, as the first fruits of the world, 
which we have undertaken to make happier than we find 
it. Let us warm her poor, shivering body with this 
good fire, and her poor, shivering heart with our best 
kindness. Let us feed her, and make her one of us. 
As we do by this friendless girl, so shall we prosper. 
And, in good time, whatever is desirable for us to know 
will be melted out of her, as inevitably as those tears 
which we see now.” 

“ At least,” remarked I, “ you may tell us how and 
where you met with her.” 

“ An old man brought her to my lodgings,” answered 
Hollingsworth, “ and begged me to convey her to Blithe- 
dale, where — so I understood him — she had friends ; 
and this is positively a* I know about the matter.” 

Grim Silas Foster, all this while, had been busy at the 
supper-table, pouring out his own tea, and gulping it 
down with no more sense of its exquisiteness than if it 
were a decoction of catnip ; helping himself to pieces oJ 


THE SUrPER-TABLE. 


39 


dipt toast on iVe flaJ of his knife-blade, and dropping 
half of it on the mble-cloth ; using the same serviceable 
implement to cut slice after slice of ham; perpetrating 
terrible enormities with the butter plate ; and, in all 
ither respects, behaving less like a civilized Christian 
than the worst kind of an ogre. Being by this time 
fully gorged, he crowned his amiable exploits with a 
draught from the water pitcher, and then favored us 
with his opinion about the business in hand. And, cer- 
tainly, though they proceeded out of an unwiped mouth, 
his expressions did him honor. 

“ Give the girl a hot cup of tea, and a thick slice of 
this first-rate bacon,” said Silas, like a sensible man as 
lie was. “ That ’s what she wants. Let her stay with 
us as long as she likes, and help in the kitchen, and 
take the cow-breath at milking-time ; and, in a week oi 
two, she ’ll begin to look like a creature of this world.” 

So we sat down again to supper, and Priscilla along 
with us 


V. 

UNTIL BED-TIME. 


Silas Foster, by the time we concluded our meal 
had stript off his coat, and planted himself on a low chaii 
oy the kitchen fire, with a lapstone, a hammer, a piece 
of sole-leather, and some waxed ends, in order to cobble 
an old pair of cow-hide boots ; he being, in his own 
phrase, “ something of a dab ” (whatever degree of skill 
that may imply) at the shoemaking business. We 
heard the tap of his hammer, at intervals, for the rest 
of the evening. The remainder of the party adjourned 
to the sitting-room. Good Mrs. Foster took her knit- 
ting-work, and soon fell fast asleep, still keeping her 
needles in brisk movement, and, to the best of my ob- 
servation, absolutely footing a stocking out of the texture 
of a dream. And a very substantial stocking it seemed 
to be. One of the two handmaidens hemmed a towel, 
and the other appeared to be making a ruffle, for her 
Sunday’s wear, out of a little bit of embroidered mus- 
lin, which Zenobia had probably given her. 

It was curious to observe how trustingly, and yet how 
timidly, our poor Priscilla betook herself into the shadow 
of Zenobia’s protection. She sat beside her on a stool 
looking up, every now and then, with an expression of 
humble delight, at her new friend’? beauty. A brillian 
woman is often an object of the devoted admiration — 
it might almost be termed worship, or idolatry — of some 


UNTIL BED- TIME. 


41 


voung girl, who perhaps beholds the cynosure only at an 
awful distance, and has as little hope of personal inter- 
course as of climbing among the stars of heaven. Wc 
men are too gross to comprehend it. Even a woman, 
of mature age, despises or laughs at such a passion. 
There occurred to me r.o mode of accounting for Pris- 
cilla’s behavior, except by supposing that she had read 
some of Zencbia’s stories (as such literature goes every- 
where), or her tracts in defence of the sex, and had come 
hither with the one purpose of being her slave. There 
is nothing parallel to this, I believe, — nothing so fool- 
ishly disinterested, and hardly anything so beautiful, — 
in the masculine nature, at whatever epoch of life ; or, 
if there be, a fine and rare development of character 
might reasonably be looked for from the youth who 
should prove himself capable of such self-forgetful affec- 
tion. 

Zenobia happening to change her seat, I took the 
opportunity, in an under tone, to suggest some such 
notion as the above. 

“ Since you see the young woman in so poetical a 
light,” replied she, in the same tone, “ you had better 
turn the affair into a ballad. It is a grand subject, and 
worthy of supernatural machinery. The storm, the 
startling knock at the door, the entrance of the sable 
knight Hollingsworth and this shadowy snow-maiden, 
who, precisely at the stroke of midnight, shall melt away 
at my feet in a pool of ice-cold water and give me my 
death with a pair of wet slippers ! And when the . erses 
are written, and polished quite to your mind, I will favor 
you with my idea as to what the girl really is.” 


42 


THE BiiITHEDALE ROMANCE. 


“ Pray let me have it now,” said I ; “it shall oe woven 
into the ballad.” 

“ She is neither more nor less,” answered Zenobia, 
“ than a seamstress from the city ; and she has probably 
no more transcendental purpose than to do my miscella- 
neous sewing, for I suppose she will hardly expect to 
make my dresses.” 

“ How can you decide upon her so easily ? ” I in- 
quired. 

“ O, we women judge one another by tokens that 
escape the obtuseness of masculine perceptions,” said 
Zenobia. “ There is no proof which you would be 
likely to appreciate, except the needle-marks on the tip 
of her fore-finger. Then, my supposition perfectly 
accounts for her paleness, her nervousness, and her 
wretched fragility. Poor thing ! She has been stifled 
with the heat of a salamander-stove, in a small, close 
room, and has drunk coffee, and fed upon dough-nuts, 
raisins, candy, and all such trash, till she is scarcely half 
alive ; and so, as she has hardly any physique, a poet, 
like Mr. Miles Coverdale, may be allowed to think her 
spiritual.” 

“ Look at her now ! ” whispered I. 

Priscilla was gazing towards us, with an inexpressible 
sorrow in her wan face, and great tears running down 
her cheeks. It was difficult to resist the impression that 
cautiously as we had lowered our voices, she must have 
overheard and been wounded by Zenobia’s scornful 
estimate of her character and purposes. 

“What ears the girl must have! ” whispered Zenobia, 
with a look of vexation, partly comic, and partly real. 
“ I will confess to you that I cannot quite make her out. 


UNTIL BED-TIME. 


*3 

However, 5 am positively not an ih-natuied person, un- 
less when very grievously provoked ; and as you, and 
especially Mr. Hollingsworth, take so much interest in 
this odd creature, — and as she knocks, with a very- 
slight tap, against my own heart, likewise, — why, 1 
mean to let her in. From this moment, I will be rea- 
sonably kind to her. There is no pleasure in torment- 
ing a person of one’s own sex, even if she do favor one 
with a little more love than one can conveniently dis- 
pose of ; — and that, let me say, Mr. Coverdale, is the 
most troublesome offence you can offer to a woman.” 

“ Thank you,” said I, smiling ; “ 1 don’t mean to be 
guilty of it.” 

She went towards Priscilla, took her hand, and passed 
her own rosy finger-tips, with a pretty, caressing move- 
ment, over the girl’s hair. The touch had a magical 
effect. So vivid a look of joy flushed up beneath those 
fingers, that it seemed as if the sad and wan Priscilla 
had been snatched away, and another kind of creature 
substituted in her place. This one caress, bestowed vol- 
untarily by Zenobia, was evidently received as a pledge 
of all that the stranger sought from her, whatever the 
unuttered boon might be. From that instant, too, she 
melted in quietly amongst us, and was no longer a for- 
eign element. Though always an object of peculiai 
interest, a riddle, and a theme of frequent discussion, 
her tenure at Blithedale was thenceforth fixed. We no 
more thought of questioning it, than if Priscilla had been 
recognized as a domestic sprite, who had haunted the 
rustic fireside, of old, before we had ever been warmed 
by its blaze. 

She now produced, out of i work-bag that she had 


44 


THE BLITHEDALE I.OMANCE. 


with her, some little wooden instrurr.mts (what they are 
called, 1 never knew), and proceeded to knit, or net, an 
article which ultimately took the shape of a siik purse. 
As the work went m, I remembered to have seen just 
such purses before , indeed, I was the possessor of one. 
Their peculiar excellence, besides the great delicacy and 
oeauty of the manufacture, lay in the almost impossibil- 
ity that any uninitiated person should discover the aper- 
ture ; although, to a practised touch, they would open as 
wide as charity or prodigality might wish. I wondered 
if it were not a symbol of Priscilla’s own mystery. 

Notwithstanding the new confidence with which Zeno- 
bia had inspired her, our guest showed herself disqui- 
eted by the storm. When the strong puffs of wind spat- 
tered the snow against the windows, and made the oaken 
frame of the farm-house creak, she looked at us appre- 
hensively, as if to inquire whether these tempestuous 
outbreaks did not betoken some unusual mischief in the 
shrieking blast. She had been bred up, no doubt, in 
some close nook, some inauspiciously sheltered court of 
the city, where the uttermost rage of a tempest, though 
it might scatter down the slates of the roof into the 
Dricked area, could not shake the casement of her little 
room. The sense of vast, undefined space, pressing 
from the outside against the black panes of our uncur- 
tained windows, was fearful to the poor girl, heretofore 
accustomed to the narrowness of human limits, with the 
lamps of neighboring tenements glimmering across the 
street. The house probably seemed to her adrift on the 
great ocean of the night. A little parallelogram of sky 
was all that she had hitherto known of nature, so that 
she felt the awfulness that really exists in its limitless 


UNTIL BED-TIME. 


45 


extent. Once, while the blast was bellowing, she caught 
hold of Zenooia’s robe, with precisely the air of one who 
hears her own name spoken at a distance, but is unut- 
teiably reluctant to obey the call. 

We spent rather an incommunicative evening. Hol- 
lingsworth hardly said a word, unless when repeatedly 
and pertinaciously addressed. Then, indeed, he would 
glare upon us from the thick shrubbery of his medita- 
tions like a tiger out of a jungle, make the briefest reply 
possible, and betake himself back into the solitude of his 
heart and mind. The poor fellow had contracted this 
ungracic us habit from the intensity with which he con- 
templated his own ideas, and the infrequent sympathy 
which they met with from his auditors, — a circumstance 
that seemed only to strengthen the implicit confidence 
that he awarded to them. His heart, I imagine, was 
never really interested in our socialist scheme, but was 
forever busy with his strange, and, as most people thought 
it, impracticable plan, for the reformation of criminals 
through an appeal to their higher instincts. Much as 1 
liked Hollingsworth, it cost me many a groan to tolerate 
him on this point. He ought to have commenced his 
investigation of the subject by perpetrating some huge 
sin in his proper person, and examining the condition of 
his higher instincts afterwards. 

The rest of us formed ourselves into a committee foi 
providing our infant community with an appropriate 
name, — a matter of greatly more difficulty than the 
uninitiated reader would suppose. Blithedale was nei 
ther good nor bad. We should have resumed the old 
Indian name of the premises, had it possessed theoihand- 
honey flow which the aborigines were so often happy ii4 


46 


THE BLITHELALE ROMANOS. 


communicating to their local appellations ; but it chanceu 
to lea harsh, ill-connected, and interminable word, which 
seemed to fill the mouth with a mixture 01 very stiff clay 
and very crumbly pebbles. Zenobia suggested “ Sunny 
Glimpse,” as expressive of a vista into a better system of 
society. This we turned over and over, for a while 
acknowledging its pretti ness, but concluded it to be rather 
too fine and sentimental a name (a fault inevitable by 
literary T adies, in such attempts) for sun-burnt men to 
work under. I ventured to whisper “ Utopia,” which, 
how r ever, was unanimously scouted down, and the pro- 
poser very harshly maltreated, as if he had intended a 
latent satire. Some were for calling our institution 
“ The Oasis,” in view of its being the one green spot in 
the moral sand-waste of the world ; but others insisted 
on a proviso for reconsidering the matter at a twelve- 
month’s end, when a final decision might be had, 
whether to name it “The Oasis,” or Sahara. So, at 
last, finding it impracticable to hammer out anything 
better, we resolved that the spot should still be Blithe- 
dale, as being of good augury enough. 

The evening wore on, and the outer solitude looked 
in upon us through the windows, gloomy, wild and 
vague, like another state of existence, close beside the 
little sphere of warmth and light in which we were the 
prattlers and bustlers of a moment. By and by, the 
door was opened by Silas Foster, with a cotton handker- 
chief about his head, and a tallow candle in his hand. 

“Take my advice, brother farmers,” said he, with a 
grc\t, broad, bottomless yawn, “ and get to bed as soon 
p? you can. I shall sound the horn at daybreak; and 


UNTIL BED-TIME. 


n 


we ’ve got the cattle to fodder, and nine cow? to milk 
and a dozen other things to do, before breakfast. ’’ 

Thus ended the first evening at Blithedale. I went 
shivering to my fireless chamber, with the miserable con- 
sciousness (which had been jawing upon me for several 
hours past) that I had caught a tremendous cold, and 
should probably awaken, at the blast of the horn, a fit 
subject for a hospital. The night proved a feverish one. 
During the greater part of it, I was in that vilest of 
states when a fixed idea remains in the mind, like the 
nail in Sisera’s brain, while innumerable other ideas go 
and come, and flutter to and fro, combining constant 
transition with intolerable sameness. Had I made a 
record of that night’s half- waking dreams, it is my belief 
that it would have anticipated several of the chief inci- 
dents of this narrative, including a dim shadow of its 
catastrophe. Starting up in bed, at length, I saw that 
the storm was past, and the moon was shining on the 
snowy landscape, which looked like a lifeless copy of the 
world in marble. 

From the bank of the distant river, which was shim- 
mering in the moonlight, came the black shadow of the 
only cloud in heaven, driven swiftly by the wind, and 
passing over meadow and hillock, vanishing amid tufts 
of leafless trees, but reappearing on the hither side, until 
it swept across our door-step. 

How cold an Arcadia was this ’ 


VI. 

COVERDALE’S SICK-CHAMBER. 


Iiie horn sounded at daybreak, as Silas Foster had 
forewarned us, harsh, uproarious, inexorably drawn out 
and as sleep-dispelling as if this hard-hearted old. yeo- 
man had got hold of the trump of doom. 

On all sides I could hear the creaking of the bed- 
steads, as the brethren of Blithedale started from slum- 
ber, and thrust themselves into their habiliments, all 
awry, no doubt, in their haste to begin the reformation 
of the world. Zenobia put her head into the entry, and 
besought Silas Foster to cease his clamor, and to be kind 
enough to leave an armful of firewood and a pail of water 
at her chamber-door. Of the whole household, — un- 
less, indeed, it were Priscilla, for whose habits, in this 
particular, I cannot vouch, — of all our apostolic society, 
whose mission was to bless mankind, Hollingsworth, I 
apprehend, was the only one who began the enterprise 
with prayer. My sleeping-room being but thinly par- 
titioned from his, the solemn murmur of his voice made 
its way to my ears, compelling me to be an auditor of his 
awful privacy with the Creator. It affected me with a 
deep reverence for Hollingsworth, which no familiarity 
then existing, or that afterwards grew more intimate 
between us, — no, nor my subsequent perception of his 
own great errors, — ever quite effaced. It is so rare, in 
these times, to meet with a man of ptaysrful habits 


coverdale’s sick-chamber 


49 


(except, of course, in the pulpit), that such an one is 
ilecidedly marked out by a light of transfiguration, shed 
rpon him in the divine interview from which he passes 
into his daily life. 

As foi me, I lay abed ; and if I said my prayers, it 
was backward, cursing my day as bitterly as patient Job 
himself. The truth was, the hot-house warmth of a 
town-residence, and the luxurious life in which I in- 
dulged myself, had taken much of the pith out of my 
physical system ; and the wintry blast of the preceding 
day, together with the general chill of our airy old farm- 
house, had got fairly into my heart and the marrow of 
my bones. In this predicament, I seriously wished — 
selfish as it may appear — that the reformation of 
society had been postponed about half a centuiy, or, at 
all events, to such a date as should have put my inter- 
meddling with it entirely out of the question. 

What, in the name of common sense, had I to do 
with any better society than I had always lived in ? It 
had satisfied me well enough. My pleasant bachelor- 
parlor, sunny and shadowy, curtained and carpeted, with 
the bed-chamber adjoining ; my centre-table, strewn with 
books and periodicals ; my writing-desk, with a half- 
finished poem, in a stanza of my own contrivance ; my 
morning lounge at the reading-room or picture-gallery ; 
my noontide walk along the cheery pavement, with the 
suggestive succession of human faces, and the brisk 
throb of human life, in which I shared ; my dinner at 
the Albion, -where I had a hundred dishes at command, 
and could banquet as delicately as the wizard Michael 
Scott when the devil fed him from the King of France’s 
kitchen ; my evening at the billiard-club, the concert, (he 
4 


50 


THE BLITHE DALE 20MANCB 


theatre, or at somebody’s party, if I pleased ; — what 
could be better than all this ? Was it better to bee, to 
mow, to toil and moil amidst the accumulations of a 
oam-yard ; to be the chamber-maid of two yoke of oxen 
and a dozen cgws ; to eat salt beef, and earn it with the 
sweat of my brow, and thereby take the tough morsel 
out of some wretch’s mouth, into whose vocation I had 
thrust myself? Above all, was it better to have a fever 
and die blaspheming, as I was like to do ? 

In this wretched plight, with a furnace in my heart, 
and another in my head, by the heat of which I was 
kept constantly at the boiling point, yet shivering at the 
bare idea of extruding so much as a finger into the icy 
atmosphere of the room, I kept my bed until breakfast- 
time, when Hollingsworth knocked at the door, and 
entered. 

“Well, Coverdale,” cried he, “you bid fair to make 
an admirable farmer ! Don’t you mean to get up to- 
day ? ” 

“ Neither to-day nor to-morrow,” said I, hopelessly. 
“ I doubt if I ever rise again ! ” 

“ What is the matter, now ? ” he asked. 

I told him my piteous case, and besought him to send 
me back to town in a close carriage. 

“ No, no ! ” said Hollingsworth, with kindly serious* 
ness. “ If you are really sick, we must take care of 
you.” 

Accordingly, he built a fire in my chamber, and, hav- 
ing .ittle else to do while the snow lay on the ground 
established himself as my nurse. A doctor was sent 
for, wno, being homoeopathic, gave me as much medicine, 
in the course of a fortnight’s attendance, as would have 


coverdale’s sick-chamber. 


61 


mm on the point if a needle. They fed me on water- 
gruel, and I speedily became a skeleton above ground. 
But, after all, I have many precious recollections con- 
nected with that fit of sickness. 

Hollingsworth’s more than brotherly attendance gave 
me inexpressible comfort. Most men — and certainly 1 
could not always claim to be one of the exceptions — 
Have u natural indifference, if not an absolutely hostile 
feeling, towards those whom disease, or weakness, or 
calamity of any kind, causes to falter and faint amid 
the rude jostle of our selfish existence. The education 
of Christianity, it is true, the sympathy of a like experi- 
ence and the example of women, may soften, and, pos- 
sibly, subvert, this ugly characteristic of our sex; but it 
is originally there, and has likewise its analogy in the 
practice of our brute brethren, who hunt the sick or dis- 
abled member of the herd from among them, as an 
enemy. It is for this reason that the stricken deer goes 
apart, and the sick lion grimly withdraws himself into 
his don. Except in love, or the attachments of kindred, 
or other very long and habitual affection, we really have 
no tenderness. But there was something of the woman 
moulded into the great, stalwart frame of Hollingsworth ; 
nor was he ashamed of it, as men often are of what is 
best in them, nor seemed ever to know that there was 
such a soft place in his heart. I knew it well, however, 
at that tune, although afterwards it came nigh to be 
forgotten. Methought there could not be two such men 
alive as Hollingsworth. There never was any blaze of 
a fireside that warmed and cheered me, in the down- 
sinkings and shiveringr of rv spirit, sr effectually a> 


52 


THE BL1TIIEDALE ROMANCE. 


did the light out of those eyes, which laf so deep and 
dark under his shaggy brows. 

Happy the man that has such a friend beside him 
when he comes to die ! and unless a friend like Hollings- 
worth be at hand, — as most probably there will not, — he 
had better make up his mind to die alone. How many 
men, I wonder, does one meet with, in a lifetime, whom 
lie would choose for his death-bed companions ! At the 
ci isis of my fever, I besought Hollingsworth to let nobody 
else enter the room, but continually to make me sensible 
of his own presence, by a grasp of the hand, a word, a 
prayer, if he thought good to utter it ; and that then he 
should be the witness how courageously I would en- 
counter the worst. It still impresses me as almost a 
matter of regret, that I did not die then, when I had 
tolerably made up my mind to it; for Hollingsworth 
would have gone with me to the hither verge of life, 
and have sent his friendly and hopeful accents far over 
on the other side, while I should be treading the un- 
known path. Now, were I to send for him, he would 
hardly come to my bed-side, nor should I depart the 
easier for his presence. 

“You are not going to die, this time,” said he, 
gravely smiling. “You know nothing about sickness, 
and think your case a great deal more desperate than it 
is.” 

“ Death should take me while I am in the mood,” 
replied I, with a little of my customary levity. 

“Have you nothing to do in life,” asked Hollings- 
worth, “ that you fancy yourse.f so ready to leave it ? ” 

“Nothing,” answered I; “nothing, that I know of, 
unless to make p*etty verses, and play a part, with 


COVERDALE’S SICK-CHAMEER. 


63 


‘feaobia and the rest of the amateurs, in our pastoral 
It seems but an unsubstantial sort of business, as viewed 
riirough a mist of fever. But, dear Hollingsworth, your 
own vocation is evidently to be a priest, and to fpend 
your days and nights in helping your fellow-creatures to 
draw peaceful dying breaths.” 

“ And by which of my qualities,” inquired he, “ can 
you suppose n. e fitted for this awful ministry ? ” 

“ By your tenderness,” I said. “It seems to me the 
reflection of God’s own love.” 

“ And you call me tender ! ” repeated Hollingsworth, 
thoughtfully. “I should rather say that the most 
marked trait in my character is an inflexible severity of 
purpose. Mortal man has no right to be so inflexible as 
it is my nature and necessity to be.” 

“ I do not believe it,” I replied. 

But, in due time, I remembered what he said. 

Probably, as Hollingsworth suggested, my disorder 
was never so serious as, in my ignorance of such mat- 
ters, I was inclined to consider it. After so much tragi- 
cal preparation, it was positively rather mortifying to 
find myself on the mending hand. 

All the other members of the Community showed me 
kindness according to the full measure of their capacity 
Zenobia brought me my gruel, every day, made by het 
own hands (not very skilfully, if the truth must be told) s 
and whenever I seemed inclined to converse, would sis 
by my bed-side, and talk with so much vivacity as to 
add several gratuitous throbs to my pulse. Her poor 
little stories and tracts never half did justice to her intel- 
lect. It was only the lack of a fitter avenue that drove 
her to seek development in literature. She was mads 


51 


THE BLITHEDALE ROMANCE. 


(among a thousand other things that she might have 
been) for a stump-oratress. I recognized no severe cul 
ture in Zenobia ; her mind was full of weeds. It startled 
me, sometimes, in my state of moral as well as bodily 
faint-heartedness, to observe the hardihood of her pniloso 
phy. She made no scruple of oversetting all human 
institutions, and scattering them as with a breeze from 
her fan. A female reformer, in her attacks upon society, 
has an instinctive sense of where the life lies, and is 
inclined to aim directly at that spot. Especially the 
relation between the sexes is naturally among the 
earliest to attract her notice. 

Zenobia was truly a magnificent woman. The homely 
simplicity of her dress could not conceal, nor scarcely 
diminish, the queenliness of her presence. The image 
of her form and face should have been multiplied all 
over the earth. It was wronging the rest of mankind 
to retain her as the spectacle of only a few. The stage 
would have been her proper sphere. She should have 
made it a point of duty, moreover, to sit endlessly to 
painters and sculptors, and preferably to the latter ; 
because the cold decorum of the marble would consist 
with the utmost scantiness of drapery, so that the eye 
might chastely be gladdened with her material perfec- 
tion in its entireness. I know not well how to express, 
that the native glow of coloring in her cheeks, and even 
the flesh- warmth over her round arms, and what was 
visible of her full bust, — in a word, h.,r womanliness 
incarnated, — compelled me sometimes to close my eyes, 
as if it were not quite the privilege of modesty to gaze 
at her. Illness and exhaustion, no doubt, had made mi 
morbidly sensitive. 


COVERDALE’s SICK -CHAMBER. 


5b 


I noticed —and wondered how Zenobia contrived n — 
that she hai always a new flower in her hair. And 
*tili it was a hot-house flower — an outlandish flower, 
— a flower of the tropics, such as appeared to have 
sprung passionately out of a soil the very weeds of which 
would be fervid and spicy. Unlike as was the flower 
of each successive day to the preceding one, it yet so 
assimilated its richness to the rich beauty of the woman, 
that I thought it the only flower fit to be worn ; so fit, 
indeed, that Nature had evidently created this floral 
gem, in a happy exuberance, for the one purpose of 
worthily adorning Zenobia’s head. It might be that my 
feverish fantasies clustered themselves about this pecu- 
liarity, and caused it to look more gorgeous and wonder- 
ful than if beheld with temperate eyes. In the height 
of my illness, as I well recollect, I went so far as to pro- 
nounce it preternatural. 

“ Zenobia is an enchantress ! ” whispered I once to 
Hollingsworth. “ She is a sister of the Veiled Lady. 
That flower in her hair is a talisman. If you were to 
snatch it away, she would vanish, or be transformed into 
something else.” 

“ What does he say ? ” asked Zenobia. 

“ Nothing that has an atom of sense in it,” answered 
Hollingsworth. “ He is a little beside himself, I believe, 
and talks about your being a witch, and of some magical 
property in the flower that you wear in your hair.” 

“ It is an idea worthy of a feverish poet,” said she, 
laughing rather compassionately, and taking out the 
flower. “ I scorn to owe anything to magic. Here, Mr. 
Hollingsworth, you may keep the spell while it has any 
virtue in it; but I cannot promise you nol to appear with 


56 


THE BLITHErALE ROMANCE. 


a n sw one to-morrow. It is the one relic of my nor* 
brilliant, my happier days ! ” 

The most curious part of the matter was. that long 
after my slight delirium had passed away, — as long, 
indeed, as I continued to know this remarkable woman, 
-her daily flower affected my imagination, though 
more slightly, yet in very much the same way. The 
reason must have been that, whether intentionally on 
her part or not, this favorite ornament was actually a 
subtile expression of Zenobia’s character. 

One subject, about which — very impertinently, more- 
over — I perplexed myself with a great many conjec- 
tures, was, whether Zenobia had ever been married. 
The idea, it must be understood, was unauthorized by 
Tiny circumstance or suggestion that had made its way 
to my ears. So young as I beheld her, and the freshest 
and rosiest woman of a thousand, there was certainly no 
need of imputing to her a destiny already accomplished ; 
the probability was far greater that her coming years 
had all life’s richest gifts to bring. If the great event 
of a woman’s existence had been consummated, the world 
knew nothing of it, although the world seemed to know 
Zenobia well. It was a ridiculous piece of romance, 
undoubtedly, to imagine that this beautiful personage, 
wealthy as she was, and holding a position that might 
fairly enough be called distinguished, could have given 
herself aw'ay so privately, but that some whisper and 
suspicion, and, by degrees, a full understanding of the 
fact, would eventually be blown abroad. But then, as 1 
failed not to consider, her original home was at a dis- 
tance of many hundred miles. Rumors might All the 
«ccia. atmosphere, or mighl once have filled it, there. 


COVERDALE S SI 'K-'JHAMBER. 


57 


winch would travel but slowly, against the w mu, towards 
our north-eastern metropolis, and perhaps melt into thin 
air before reaching it. 

There was not — and I distinctly repeat it — the 
slightest foundation in my knowledge for any surmise of 
the kind. But there is a species of intuition, — either a 
spiritual lie, or the subtle recognition of a fact, — which 
comes to us in a reduced state of the corporeal system. 
The soul gets the better of the body, after wasting ill- 
ness, or when a vegetable diet may have mingled too 
much ether in the blood. Vapors then rise up to the 
brain, and take shapes that often image falsehood, but 
sometimes truth. The spheres of our companions have, 
at such periods, a vastly greater influence upon our own 
than when robust health gives us a repellent and self- 
defensive energy. Zenobia’s sphere, I imagine, impressed 
itself powerfully on mine, and transformed me, during 
this period of my weakness, into something like a mes- 
merical clairvoyant. 

Then, also, as anybody could observe, the freedom of 
her deportment (though, to some tastes, it might com- 
mend itself as the utmost perfection of manner in a 
youthful widow or a blooming matron) was not exactly 
maiden-like. What girl had ever laughed as Zenobia 
did ? What girl had ever spoken in her mellow tones ? 
Her unconstrained and inevitable manifestation, I said 
often to myself, was that of a woman to whom wedlock 
had thrown wide the gates of mystery. Yet sometimes 
I strove to be ashamed of these conjectures. I acknowl- 
edged it as a masculine grossness, — a sin of wicked 
interpretation, of which man is often guilty towards the 
other sev, — thus tc mistake the sweet liberal , but 


58 


THE BLITHEDALE ROM/NCF 


womanly frankness of a noble and generous disposition 
Stili, it was of no avail to reason with myself, nor to up 
craid myself. Pertinaciously the thought, “ Zenobia is a 
wife, — Zenobia has lived and loved ! There is no folded 
petal, no latent dew-drop, in this perfectly-developed 
rose ! ” — irresistibly that thought drove out all other 
conclusions, as often as my mind reverted to the subject. 

Zenobia was conscious of my observation, though not, 
I presume, of the point to which it led me. 

“ Mr. Coverdale,” said she, one day, as she saw me 
watching her, while she arranged my gruel on the table, 
I have been exposed to a great deal of eye-shot in the 
few years of my mixing in the world, but never, I think 
to precisely such glances as you are in the habit of 
favoring me with. I seem to interest you very much ; 
and yet — or else a woman’s instinct is for once 
deceived — I cannot reckon you as an admirer. What 
are you seeking to discover in me ? ” 

“ The mystery of your life,” answered I, surprised into 
the truth by the unexpectedness of her attack. “ And 
you will never tell me.” 

She bent her head towards me, and let me look into 
her eyes, as if challenging me to drop a plummet-line 
down into the depths of her consciousness. 

“ I see nothing now,” said I, closing my own eyes, 
“ unless it be the face of a sprite laughing at me from 
the bottom of a deep well.” 

A bachelor always feels himself defrauded, when he 
knows, or suspects, that any woman of his acquaintance 
Has given herself away. Otherwise, the matter could 
have been no concern of mine. It was purely specula- 
te for I should not, under any circumstances, have 


C OVERDALE’S SICK-CHAMBER. 5^ 

fallen in. love with Zenobia. The riddle made me so 
nervous, however, in my sensitive condition of mind and 
body, that I most ungratefully began to wish that she 
would let me alone. Then, too, her gruel was very 
wretched stuff, with almost invariably the smell of pine 
smoke upon it, like the evil taste that is said to mix 
itself up with a witch’s best concocted dainties. Why 
could not she have allowed one of the other women to 
take the gruel in charge ? Whatever else might be her 
gifts, Nature certainly never intended Zenobia for a 
cook. Or, if so, she should have meddled only with the 
richest and spiciest dishes, and such as are to be tasted 
at banquets, between draughts of intoxicating wine. 


VII. 

THE CONVALESCENT. 


As soon as my mcommodities allowed me to think of 
past occurrences, I failed not to inquire what had become 
of the odd little guest whom Hollingsworth had been the 
medium of introducing among us. It now appeared that 
poor Priscilla had not so literally fallen out of the clouds 
as we were at first inclined to suppose. A letter, which 
should have introduced her, had since been received 
from one of the city missionaries, containing a certificate 
of character, and an allusion to circumstances which, in 
the writer’s judgment, made it especially desirable that' 
she should find shelter in our Community. There w T as a 
hint, not very intelligible, implying either that Priscilla 
had recently escaped from some particular peril or irk- 
someness of position, or else that she was still liable to 
this danger or difficulty, whatever it might be. We 
should ill have deserved the reputation of a benevolent 
fraternity, had we hesitated entertain a petitioner in 
such need, and so strongly recommended to our kind 
ness ; not to mention, moreover, that the strange maidei 
had set herself diligently to work, and was doing gooa 
service with her needle. But a slight mist of uncer 
tamty still floated about Priscilla, and kept her, as yet 
from talcing a very decided place among creatures oi 
flesh a nd blood. 

*i iie mysterious attraction, which, from her fr«i 


THE CONVALESCENT. 


6i 


entrance on our scene, she evinced for Zenobia, had lost 
nothing of its force. I often heard hei footsteps, soft and 
low, accompanying the light but decided tread of the 
latter up the staircase, stealing along the p/tssage-way 
by her new friend’s side, and pausing while Zenobia 
entered my chamber. Occasionally, Zenobia would b? 
a little annoyed by Priscilla’s too close attendance. In 
an authoritative and not very kindly tone, she would 
advise her to breathe the pleasant air in a walk, or to go 
with her work into the bam, holding out half a promise 
t) come and sit on the hay with her, when at leisure. 
Evidently, Priscilla found but scanty requital for her 
love. Hollingsworth was likewise a great favorite with 
her. For several minutes together, sometimes, while 
my auditory nerves retained the susceptibility of delicate 
hea? + h, I used to hear a low, pleasant munnur, ascend- 
ing from the room below ; and at last ascertained it io be 
Priscilla’s voice, babbling like a little brook to Hollings- 
worth. She talked more largely and freely with him 
than with Zenobia, to'.mrds whom, indeed, her feelings 
seemed not so much to be confidence as involuntary 
affection. I should have thought all the better of my 
own qualities, had Priscilla marked me out for the 
third place in her regards. But, though she appeared 
to like me tolerably well, I could never flatter myself 
with being distinguished by her as Hollingsworth and 
Zenobia were. 

One forenoon, during my convalescence, there came a 
gentle tap at my chamber-door. I immediately said, 
tt Come in, Priscilla ! ” with an acute sense of the appli- 
cant’s identity. Nor was I deceived. It was really 
Priscilla, — a pale, large-eyed little woman (for she 


62 


THL BLITHE DALE ROMANCE- 


nail gone far enough into hei teens to be, at least, on 
the outer limit of girlhood), but much less wan than at 
my previous view of her, and far better conditioned both 
as to health and spirits. As I first saw her, she had 
reminded me of plants that one sometimes observes 
doing their best to vegetate among the bricks of an 
enclosed court, where there is scanty soil, and never any 
sunshine. At present, though with no approach to 
bloom, there were indications that the girl had human 
blood in her veins. 

Priscilla came softly to my bed-side, and held out an 
article of snow-white linen, very carefully and smoothly 
ironed. She did not seem bashful, nor anywise embar- 
rassed. My weakly condition, I suppose, supplied a 
medium in which she could approach me. 

“ Do not you need this ? ” asked she. “ I have made 
it for you.” 

It was a night-cap ! 

“ My dear Priscilla,” said I, smiling, “ I never had on a 
night-cap in my life ! But perhaps it will be better for 
me to wear one, now that I am a miserable invalid 
How admirably you have done it ! No, no ; I never can 
think of wearing such an exquisitely wrought night-cap 
as this, unless it be in the day-time, when I sit up to 
receive company.” 

“ It is for use, not beauty,” answered Priscilla. “ I 
could have embroidered it, and made it much prettier, if 
l pleased.” 

While holding up the night-cap, and admiring the fine 
needle-work, I perceived that Priscilla had a sealed let- 
ter, which she was waiting for me to take. It had 
arrive d from the village p^t-office that morning. As 1 


THE CONVAI ESCENT. 


63 


JrJ not immediately offer to receive the letter^ she drew 
it back, and held it against her bosom, with both hands 
clasped over it, in a way that had probably grown 
habitual to her. Now, on turning my eyes from the 
night-cap to Priscilla, it forcibly struck me that her air 
though not her figure, and the expression of her face 
but not its features, had a resemblance to what I had 
often seen in a friend of mine, one of the most gifted 
women of the age. I cannot describe it. The points 
easiest to convey to the reader were, a certain curve of 
the shoulders, and a partial closing of the eyes, which 
eemed to look more penetratingly into my own eyes, 
\ Tough the narrowed apertures, than if they had been 
op :n at full width. It was a singular anomaly of like- 
ness coexisting with perfect dissimilitude. 

“ Will you give me the letter, Priscilla ? ” said 1. 

She started, put the letter into my hand, and quite 
lost the look that had drawn my notice. 

“Priscilla,” I inquired, “did you ever see Miss 
Margaret Fuller ? ” 

“ No,” she answered. 

“ Because,” said I, “ you reminded me of her, just 
now ; and it happens, strangely enough, that this very 
letter is from her.” 

Priscilla, for whatever reason, looked very much dis 
composed. 

“ I wish people would not fancy such odd things in 
me ! ” she said, rather petulantly. “-How could I pos- 
sibly make myself resemble this lady, merely by holding 
her letter in my hand ? ” 

“ Certainly, Priscilla, it would puzzle me to explain 
it, ” I replied ; “ nor do I suppose that the etter had any 


61 


THE BLITHE DALE ROMANCE. 


thing to do with it It was just a coincidence, nothing 
more/’ 

She hastened out of the room, and this was the last 
that I saw of Priscilla until I ceased to be an invalid. 

Being much alone, during my recovery, I read inter- 
minably in Mr. Emerson’s Essays, the Dial, Carlyle’s 
works, George Sand’s romances (lent me by Zenobia), and 
other books which one or another of the brethren or 
sisterhood had brought with them. Agreeing in little 
else, raost of these utterances were like the cry of some 
solitary sentine*, whose station was on the outposts of 
the advance-guard of human progression ; or, sometimes, 
the voice came sadly from among the shattered ruins ol 
the past, but yet had a hopeful echo in the future. 
They were well adapted (better, at least, than any other 
intellectual products, the volatile essence of which had 
heretofore tinctured a printed page) to pilgrims like 
ourselves, whose present bivouac was considerably fur- 
ther into the waste of chaos than any mortal army of 
crusaders had ever marched before. Fourier’s works, 
also, in a series of horribly tedious volumes, attracted a 
good deal of my attention, from the analog}' which i 
could not but recognize between his system and our 
own. There was far less resemblance, it is true, than 
the world chose to imagine, inasmuch as the two theories 
differed, as widely as the zenith from the nalir, in then 
main principles. 

I talked about Fourier to Hollingsworth, and trans 
lated, for his benefit, some of the passages; i hat chiefly 
impressed me. 

“When, as a consequence of human improvement,’ 
«o»d I, 'the globe shall arrive at its final perfection, tbs 


THE CONVALESCENT. 


65 


great ocean is to be converted into a particular kind of 
lemonade, such as was fashionable at Paris in Fourier’s 
time. He calls it limonade a cedre. It is positively a 
fact : Just imagine the city-docks filled, every day, with 
a flood-tide of this delectable beverage ! ” 

“Why did not the Frenchman make punch of it, at 
once ?” asked Hollingsworth. “ The jack-tars would be 
delighted to go down in ships and do business in such 
an element.” 

I further proceeded to explain, as well as I modestly 
could, several points of Fourier’s system, illustrating 
them with here and there a page or two, and asking 
Hollingsworth’s opinion as to the expediency of intro- 
ducing these beautiful peculiarities into our own prac- 
tice. 

“ Let me hear no more of it ! ” cried he, in utter dis- 
gust. “ I never will forgive this fellow ! He has com- 
mitted the unpardonable sin ; for what more monstrous 
iniquity could the devil himself contrive than to choose 
the selfish principle, — the principle of all human wrong, 
the very blackness of man’s heart, the portion of our- 
selves which we shudder at, and which it is the whole 
aim of spiritual discipline to eradicate, — to choose it as 
the master-workman of his system ? To seize upon and 
foster whatever vile, petty, sordid, filthy, bestial and 
abominable corruptions have cankered intt our nature, 
to be the efficient instruments of his inferr.al regenera 
lion ! And his consummated Paradise, as he pictures 
it, would be worthy of the agency which he counts upon 
for establishing it. The nauseous villain ! ” 

“ Nevertheless,” remarked I, “ in consideration of thfc 
premised delights of his system, — so very proper, as 
5 


6tf THE BLITHEDALE ROMANCE. 

they certainly are, to be appreciated by Fourier’s coun- 
tr} r men. — I cannot but wonder that universal F ranee 
did not adopt his theory, at a moment’s warning. But 
is there not something very characteristic of his nation 
in Fourier’s manner of putting forth his views ? He 
makes no claim to inspiration. He has not persuaded 
himself — - as Swedenborg did, and as any other than a 
Frenchman would, with a mission of like importance to 
communicate — that he speaks with authority from 
above. He promulgates his system, so far as I can per- 
ceive, entirely on his own responsibility. He has 
searched out and discovered the whole counsel of the 
Almighty, in respect to mankind, past, present, and fo. 
exactly seventy thousand years to come, by the mere 
force and cunning of his individual intellect ! ” 

“ Take the book out of my sight,” said Hollingsworth, 
with great virulence of expression, “ or, I tell you fairly, 
I shall fling it in the fire ! And as for F ourier, let him 
make a Paradise, if he can, of Gehenna, where, as I 
conscientiously believe, he is floundering at this mo- 
ment ! ” 

“ And bellowing, I suppose,” said I, — not that I felt 
any ill-will towards Fourier, but merely wanted to give 
the finishing touch to Hollingsworth’s image, — “ bellow- 
ing for the least drop of his beloved limonade a cedre ! ” 

There is but little profit to be expected in attempting 
to argue with a man who allows himself to declaim m 
this manner ; so I dropt the subject, and never took it 
up again. 

But had the system at which he was so enraged corn- 
oined almost any amount of human wisdom, spiritual 
insight, and imaginative beauty, I question whethe 


THE CONVALESCENT. 


67 


Hollingsworth’s mind was in a fit condition to receive it. 
I began to discern that he had come among us actuated 
by no real sympathy with our feelings and our hopes, 
but chiefly because we were estranging ourselves from 
the world, with which his lonely and exclusive object in 
afe had already put him at odds. Hollingsworth must 
have been originally endowed with a great spirit of 
benevolence, deep enough and warm enough to be the 
source of as much disinterested good as Providence often 
allows a human being the privilege of conferring upon 
his fellows. This native instinct yet lived within him. 
I myself had profited by it, in my necessity. It was 
seen, too, in his treatment of Priscilla. Such casual cir- 
cumstances as were here involved would quicken his 
divine power of sympathy, and make him seem, while 
their influence lasted, the tenderest man and the truest 
friend on earth. But, by and by, you missed the tender- 
ness of yesterday, and grew drearily conscious* that Hol- 
lingsworth had a closer friend than ever you could be ; 
and this friend was the cold, spectral monster which he 
had himself conjured up, and on which he was wasting 
all the warmth of his heart, and of which, at last, — as 
these men of a mighty purpose so invariably do, — he 
had grown to be the bond-slave. It was his philan- 
thropic theory. 

This was a result exceedingly sad to contemplate, 
considering that it had been mainly brought about by 
the very ardor and exuberance of his philanthropy. 
Sad, indeed, but by no means unusual. He had 
taught his benevolence to pour its warm tide exclusively 
through one channel ; so that there was nothing to spare 
for other great manifestations of love to man, nor scarcely 


68 


THE BLITHEDALE ROMANCE. 


for the nutriment of individual attacnments, unless they 
could minister, in some way, to the terrible egotism 
which he mistook for an angel of God. Had Hollings- 
worth’s education been more enlarged, he might not so 
inevitably have stumbled into this pit-fall. Buc this 
identical pursuit had educated him. He knew abs^ 
lutely nothing, except in a single direction, where he 
had thought so energetically, and felt to such a depth, 
that, no doubt, the entire reason and justice of the uni 
verse appeared to be concentrated thitherward. 

It is my private opinion that, at this period of hia 
life Hollingsworth was fast going mad; and, as with 
other crazy people (among whom I include humorists 
of every degree), it required all the constancy of friend- 
ship to restrain his associates from pronouncing hin 
an intolerable bore. Such prolonged fiddling upon one 
string, — such multiform presentation of one idea ! His 
specific object (of which he made the public more than 
sufficiently aware, through the medium of lectures and 
pamphlets) was to obtain funds for the construction of 
an edifice, with a sort of collegiate endowment. On 
this foundation, he purposed to devote himself and a 
few disciples to the reform and mental culture of our 
criminal brethren. His visionary edifice was Hollings- 
worth’s one castle in the air ; it was the material type 
in which his philanthropic dream strove to embody 
itself; and he made the scheme more definite, and 
caught hold of it the more strongly, and kept his clutch 
tne more pertinaciously, by rendering it visible to the 
bodily eye. I have seen him, a hundred times, with a 
pencil and sheet of paper, sketching the facade, the side 
view, or the rear of the structure, or planning the inter 


THE CONVALESCENT. 


63 

na arrangements, as lovingly as another man might 
plan those of the projected home where he meant to be 
happy with his wife and children. I have known him 
to begin a model of the building with little stones, 
gathered at the brook-sidt, whither we had gone to 
cool ourselves in the sultty noon of haying-time. Unlike 
all other ghosts, his spirit haunted an edifice which, 
instead of being time-worn, and full of storied love, and 
joy, and sorrow, had never yet come into existence. 

“Dear friend,” said I, once, to Hollingsworth, befoie 
leaving my sick-chamber, “ I heartily wish that I could 
make your schemes my schemes, because it would be so 
great a happiness to find myself treading the same path 
with you. But I am afraid tb is not stuff in me 
stern enough for a philanthropist, — or not in this 
peculiar direction, — or. at all events, not solely in this. 
Can you bear with me, if such should prove to be the 
case ? ” 

“ I will, at least, wait a while,” answered Hollings 
worth, gazing at me sternly and gloomily. “ But how 
can you be my life-long friend, except you strive with 
me towards the great object of my life ? ” 

Heaven forgive me ! A horrible suspicion crept into 
my heart, and stung the very core of it as with the tangs 
of an adder. I wondered whether it were possible that 
Hollingsworth could have watched by my bed-side, with 
all that devoted care, only for the ulterior purpose cf 
making me a proselyte to his views ! 


VIII. 

A MODERN ARCADIA. 

May-day — I forget whether by Zenobia’s sole decree, 
or by th* unanimous vote of our Community — had been 
declared a movable festival. It was deferred until the 
sun should have had a reasonable time to clear away the 
snow-drifts along the lee of the stone walls, and bring 
out a few of the readiest wild-flowers. On the forenoon 
of the substituted da} , r ter admitting some of the balmy 
air into my chamber, I decided that it was nonsense and 
effeminacy to keep myself a prisoner any longer. So I 
descended to the sitting-room, and finding nobody there, 
proceeded to the barn, whence I had already heard 
Zenobia’s voice, and along with it a girlish laugh, which 
was not so certainly recognizable. Arriving at the spot 
it a little surprised me to discover that these merry out- 
breaks came from Priscilla. 

The two had been a Maying together. They had 
found anemones in abundance, housatonias by the hand- 
ful, some columbines, a few long-stalked violets, and a 
quantity of white everlasting-flowers, and had filled up 
their basket with the delicate spray of shrubs and trees. 
None were prettier than the maple-twigs, the leaf of 
which looks like a scarlet bud in May, and like a plate 
of vegetable gold in October. Zenobia, who si owed no 
conscience in such matters, had also rifled a cherry-tree 
cf one of its blossomed boughs, and, with all this variety 


A MODERN ARCADIA. 


71 


of sylvan ornament, had been decking out Priscilla. 
Being done with a good deal of taste, it made her look 
more charming than I should have thought possible, 
with my recollection ot the wan, frost-nipt girl, as here- 
tofore described. Nevertheless, among those fragrant 
blossoms, and conspicuously, too, had been stuck a weed 
of evil odor and ugly aspect, which, as soon as I 
detected it, destroyed the effect of all the rest. There 
was a gleam of latent mischief — not to call it deviltry — 
in Zenobia’s eye, which seemed to indicate a slightly 
malicious purpose in the arrangement. 

As for herself, she scorned the rural buds and leaflets, 
and wore nothing but her invariable flower of the 
tropics. 

“What do you think of Priscilla now, Mr. Cover- 
dale ? ” asked she, surveying her as a child does its doll. 
“ Is not she worth a verse or two ? ” 

“ There is only one thing amiss,” answered l. 

Zenobia laughed, and flung the malignant weed away. 

“ Yes ; she deserves some verses now,” said I, “ and 
from a better poet than myself. She is the very picture 
of the New England spring ; subdued in tint, and rather 
cool, but with a capacity of sunshine, and bringing us a 
few Alpine blossoms, as earnest of something richer, 
though hardly more beautiful, hereafter. The best type 
of her is one of those anemones.” 

“ What I find most singular in Priscilla, as her health 
improves.” observed Zenobia, “ is her wildness. Such, 
a quiet little body as she seemed, one would not have 
expected that. Why, as we strolled the woods together, 
I could hardly keep her from scrambling up the trees, 
like a squirrel ? She has never before known what ii is 


~2 


THE BLITHEDALE ROMANCE. 


10 live in the free air, and so it intoxicates her as if she 
were sipping wine. And she thinks it such a paradise 
here, and all of us, particularly Mr. Hollingsworth and 
myself, such angels! It is quite ridiculous, and pro- 
vokes one’s malice almost, to see a creature so happy, 
especially a feminine creature.” 

“ They are always happier than male creatures, 
said I. 

“ You must correct that opinion, Mr. Coverdale,” 
replied Zenobia, contemptuously, “ or I shall think you 
lack the poetic insight. Did you ever see a happy 
woman in your life ? Of course, 1 do not mean a girl, 
like Priscilla, and a thousand others, — for they are aU 
alike, while on the sunny side of experience, — but a 
grown woman. How can she be happy, after discover- 
ing that fate has assigned her but one single event, 
which she must contrive to make the substance of her 
whole life ? A man has his choice of innumerable 
events.” 

“A woman, I suppose,” answered I, “by constant 
repetition of her one event, may compensate for the lack 
of variety.” 

“ Indeed ! ” said Zenobia. 

While we were talking, Priscilla caught sight of 
Hollingsworth, at a distance, in a blue frock, and with a 
hoe over his shoulder, returning from the field. She 
immediately set out to meet him, running and skipping, 
with spirits as light as the breeze of the May morning 
but with limbs too little exercised to be quite responsive , 
she clapped her hands, too, with great exuberance cf 
gesture, as is the custom of young girls when theif 
electricity overcharges them. But, all at once, midway 


A MODERN ARCADIA. 


•73 


to Hollingsworth, she paused, looked round about her, 
towards t,hj river, the road, the woods, and back towards 
us, appearing to listen, as if she heard some one calling 
her name, and knew not precisely in what direction. 

“ Have you bewitched her ? ” I exclainled. 

“It is no sorcery of mine,” said Zenobia; “but I 
have seen the girl do that identical thing once or twice 
before. Can you imagine what is the matter with her ? '* 

“ No ; unless,” said I, “ she has the gift of hearing 
those ‘ airy tongues that syllable men’s names,’ which 
Milton tells about.” 

From whatever cause, Priscilla’s animation seemed 
entirely to have deserted her. She seated herself on a 
rock, and remained there until Hollingsworth came up ; 
and when he took her hand and led her back to us, she 
rather resembled my original image of the wan and 
spiritless Priscilla than the flowery May-queen of a 
few moments ago. These sudden transformations, only 
to be accounted for by an extreme nervous susceptibil- 
ity, always continued to characterize the girl, though 
with diminished frequency as her health progressively 
grew more robust. 

I was now on my legs again. My fit of illness had 
been an avenue between two existences ; the low-arched 
and darksome doorway, through which I crept out of a 
life of old conventionalisms, on my hands and knees, as 
it were, and gained admittance into the freer region that 
lay beyond. In this respect, it was like death. And, 
as with death, too, it was good to have gone through it. 
No otherwise could I have rid myself of a thousand fol- 
'ies, fripperies, prejudices, habits, and other such worldly 
dust as in witably settles upon the crowd along the broad 


74 


THE B T ^ HIE DALE ROMANCE. 


highway, giving them all one sordid aspect belore noon 
time, however freshly they may have begun their pil- 
grimage in the dewy morning. The very substance 
upon my bones had not been fit to live with in any bet- 
ter, truer, or more energetic mode than that to which » 
was accustomed. So it was taken off me and flung 
luide, like any other worn-out or unseasonable garment ; 
and, after shivering a little while in my skeleton, I began 
to be clothed anew, and much more satisfactorily than 
in my previous suit. In literal and physical truth, I was 
quite another man. I had a lively sense of the exulta- 
tion with which the spirit will enter on the next stage 
of its eternal progress, after leaving the heavy burthen 
of its mortality in an earthly grave, with as little con- 
cern for what may become of it as now affected me for 
the flesh which I had lost. 

Emerging into the genial sunshine, I half fancied that 
the labors of the brotherhood had already realized some 
of Fourier’s predictions. Their enlightened culture of 
the soil, and the virtues with which they sanctified their 
life, had begun to produce an effect upon the material 
world and its climate. In my new enthusiasm, man 
looked strong and stately, — and woman, O how beauti- 
ful! — and the earth a green garden, blossoming with 
many-colored delights. Thus Nature, whose laws I had 
broken in various artificial ways, comported herself 
towards me as a strict but loving mother, who uses the 
rod upon her little boy for his naughtiness, and then 
gives him a smile, a kiss, and some pretty playthings 
to console the urchin for her severity. 

In the interval of my seclusion, there had been a nura 
oer of recruits to our little army of saints and maityrs 


A MODERN ARCADIA. 


73 

They were mostly individuals who had gone through 
such an experience as to disgust them with ordinary 
pursuits, but who were not yet so old, nor had suffered 
bo deeply, as to lose their faith in the better time to 
come. On comparing their minds one with another 
they often discovered that this idea of a Community had 
been growing up, in silent and unknown sympathy, for 
years. Thoughtful, strongly-lined faces were among 
them ; sombre brows, but eyes that did not require spec- 
tacles, unless prematurely dimmed by the student’s 
lamplight, and hair that seldom showed a thread of sil- 
ver.* Age, wedded to the past, incrusted over with a 
stony layer of habits, and retaining nothing fluid in its 
possibilities, would have been absurdly out of place in 
an enterprise like this. Youth, too, in its early dawn, 
was hardly more adapted to our purpose ; for it would 
behold the morning radiance of its own spirit beaming 
over the very same spots of withered grass and barren 
sand whence most of us had seen it vanish. We had 
very young people with us, it is true, — downy lads, 
rosy girls in their first teens, and children of all heights 
above one’s knee ; — but these had chiefly been sent 
hither for education, which it was one of the objects and 
methods of our institution to supply. Then we had 
boarders, from town and elsewhere, who lived with us in 
a familiar way, sympathized more or less in our theo- 
ries, and sometimes shared in our labors. 

On the whole, it was a society such as has seldom met 
together ; nor, perhaps, could it reasonably be expec ted 
to hold together long. Persons of marked individuality 
— crooked sticks, as some of us might be called — are 
exactly the easiest to bind up into a fagot. But, sn 


76 


THE BLITHE DALE ROMANCE. 


long as our union should subsist, a man oi intellect and 
feeling, with a free nature in him, might have sought fa\ 
Mnd near without finding so many points of attraction 
as would allure him hitherward. We were of all creeds 
and opinions, and generally tolerant of all, on every im- 
aginable subject. Our bond, it seems to me, was not 
affirmative, but negative. We had individually found 
one thing or another to quarrel with in our past life, and 
were pretty well agreed as to the inexpediency of lum- 
bering along with the old system any further. As to 
what should be substituted, there was much less una- 
nimity. We did not greatly care — at least, I never 
did — for the written constitution under which our mil- 
lennium had commenced. My hope was, that, between 
theory and practice, a true and available mode of life 
might be struck out; and that, even should we ulti- 
mately fail, the months or years spent in the trial would 
not have been wasted, either as regarded passing en* 
joyment, or the experience which makes men wise. 

Arcadians though we were, our costume bore no 
resemblance to the be-ribboned doublets, silk breeches 
and stockings, and slippers fastened with artificial roses, 
that distinguish the pastoral people of poetry and the 
stage. In outward show, I humbly conceive, we looked 
rather like a gang of beggars, or banditti, than either a 
company ot honest laboring men, or a conclave of philos- 
ophers. Whatever might be our points of difference, we 
all of us seemed to have come to Blithedale with the one 
thrifty and laudable idea of wearing out our old clothes. 
Such garments as had an airing, whenever we strode 
a-held! Coats with high collars and with no collars 
broad-skirted or swallow-tailed, and with the waist a 


A MODERN aRCADIa. 


every point between the hip and armpit; pantaloons of 
a dozen successive epochs, and greatly defaced at the 
knees by the humiliations of the wearer before his lady- 
love ; — in short, we were a living epitome of defunct 
fashions, and the very raggedest presentment of men 
who had seen better days. It was gentility in tatters. 
Often retaining a scholarlike or clerical air, you might 
have taken us for the denizens of Grub-street, intent on 
getting a comfortable livelihood by agricultural labor ; or, 
Coleridge’s projected Pantisocracy in full experiment; 
or, Candide and his motley associates, at work in their 
cabbage-garden ; or anything else that was miserably out 
at elbows, and most clumsily patched in the rear. We 
might have been sworn comrades to FalstafF’s ragged 
regiment. Little skill as we boasted in other points of 
husbandr every mother’s son of us would have served 
admirably to stick up for a scarecrow. And the worst 
of the matter was, that the first energetic movement 
essential to one downright stroke of real labor was sure 
to put a finish to these poor habiliments. So we grad- 
ually flung them all aside, and took to honest homespun 
and linsey-woolsey, as preferable, on the whole, to the 
plan recommended, I think, by Virgil, — “ Ara nudus ; 
sere nudus” — which, as Silas Foster remarked, when I 
translated the maxim, would be apt to astonish the 
women-folks. 

After a reasonable training, the yeoman life throve 
well with us. Our faces took the sunburn kindly ; our 
chests gained in compass, and our shoulders in breadth 
and squareness ; our great brown fists looked as if they 
had never been capable of kid gloves. The plough, the 
hoe, *he scythe, and the hay-fork, grew familiar to om 


78 


THE BLITHE DALE ROMANCE. 


grasp. The oxen responded to our voices. We couitl 
do almost as fair a day’s work as Silas Foster himself 
sleep dieamlessly after it, and awake at daybreak with 
only a little stiffness of the joints, which was usually 
quite gone by breakfast-time. 

To be sure, our next neighbors pretended to be incred- 
ulous as to our real proficiency in the business whi.'h we 
had taken in hand. They told slanderous fables about our 
inability to yoke our own oxen, or to drive them a-field 
when yoked, or to release the poor brutes from their con- 
jugal bond at night-fall. They had the face to say, too, 
that the cows laughed at our awkwardness at milkmg- 
time, and invariably kicked over the pails ; partly in con- 
sequence of our putting the stool on the wrong side, and 
partly because, taking offence at the whisking of their 
tails, we were in the habit of holding these natural fly- 
flappers with one hand, and milking with the other. 
They further averred that we hoed up whole acres of 
Indian corn and other crops, and drew the earth care- 
fully about the weeds ; and that we raised five hundred 
tufts of burdock, mistaking them for cabbages ; and that, 
by dint of unskilful planting, few of our seeds ever came 
up at all, or, if they did come up, it was stern-foremost ; 
and that we spent the better part of the month of June 
in reversing a field of beans, which had thrust them- 
selves out of the ground in this unseemly way. They 
quoted it as nothing more than an ordinary occurrence 
for one or other of us to crop off two or three fingers, of 
a morning, by our clumsy use of the hay-cutter. Finally 
and as an ultimate catastrophe, these mendacious rogues 
circulated a report that we communitarians were exter- 
minated, to the last man, by severing ourselves asundei 


A MODERN ARCADIA. 


79 


with the sweep of our own scythes ! — and that the world 
had lost nothing by this little accident. 

But this was pure envy and malice on the part of the 
neighboring fanners. The peril of our new way of life 
was not lest we should fail in becoming practical agri- 
culturists, but that we should probably cease to be any- 
thing else. While our enterprise lay all in theory, 
we had pleased ourselves with delectable visions of the 
spiritualization of labor. It was to be our form of 
prayer and ceremonial of worship. Each stroke of the 
hoe was to uncover some aromatic root of wisdom, here- 
tofore hidden from the sun. Pausing in the field, to let 
the wind exhale the moisture from our foreheads, wo 
were to look upward, and catch glimpses into the far-off 
soul of truth. In this point of view, matters did not turn 
out quite so well as we anticipated. It is very true that, 
sometimes, gazing casually around me, out of the midst 
of my toil, I used to discern a richer picturesqueness in 
the visible scene of earth and sky. There was, at such 
moments, a novelty, an unwonted aspect, on the face of 
Nature, as if she had been taken by surprise and seen at 
unawares, with no opportunity to put off her real look, 
and assume the mask with which she mysteriously hides 
herself from mortals. But this was all. The clods of 
earth, which we so constantly belabored and turned 
over and over, were never ethereaiized into thought. Oui 
thoughts, on the contrary, were fast becoming cloddish. 
Our labor symbolized nothing, and left us menteL'y 
sluggish in the dusk of the evening. Intellectual activity 
is incompatible with any large amount of bodily exer- 
cise. The yeoman and the scholar — the yeoman and 
thi man of finest moral cu ture, though not the man of 


so 


THE BLITHEDALE ROMANCE. 


sturdiest sense and integrity — are two distinct intii* 
viduals, and can never be melted or welded into one 
substance. 

Zenobia soon saw this truth, and gibed me about it, 
one evening, as Hofingsworth and I lay on the grass, 
after a hard day's worn. 

“ I am afraid you did not make a song, to-day, while 
loading the hay-cart,” said she, “ as Burns did, when he 
was reaping barley.” 

“ Burns never made a song in haying-time,” I am 
ewered, very positively. “ He was no poet while a 
farmer, and no farmer while a poet.” 

“ And, on the whole, which of the two characters do 
you like best?” asked Zenobia. “ For I have an idea 
that you cannot combine them any better than Bums 
did. Ah, I see, in my mind’s eye, what sort of an 
individual you are to be, two or three years hence. 
Grim Silas Foster is your prototype, with his palm 
of sole-leather and his joints of rusty iron (which all 
through summer keep the stiffness of what he calls 
his winter’s rheumatize), and his brain of — I don’t 
know what his brain is made of, unless it be a Savoy 
cabbage ; but yours may be cauliflower, as a rather 
more delicate variety. Your physical man will be trans- 
muted into salt beef and fried pork, at the rate, * should 
imagine, of a pound and a half a day; that being 
about the average which we find necessary in the 
kitchen. You will make your toilet for the day (still 
’ike this delightful Silas Foster) by rinsing your fingers 
and the front part of your face in a little tin-pan of water 
at the door-step, anl teasing your hair with a wooden 
pocketomb before a seven-by-nine-inch looking-glass 


A MODERN ARCADIA. 


81 


Youi only pastime will be to smoke some* very vile 
tobacco in the black stump of a pipe.” 

“ Pray, spare me ! ” cried I. “ But the pipe is not 
Silas’s only mode of solacing himself with the weed ” 
“Your literature,” continued Zenobia, apparently de- 
lighted with her description, “ will be the Farmer’s 
Almanac ; for I observe our friend Foster never gets so 
far as the newspaper. When you happen to sit down, 
at odd moments, you will fall asleep, and make nasal 
proclamation of the fact, as he does ; and invariably you 
must be jogged out of a nap, after supper, by the future 
Mrs. Coverdale, and persuaded to go regularly to bed. 
And on Sundays, when you put on a blue coat with 
brass buttons, you will think of nothing else to do, but to 
go and lounge over the stone walls and rail fences, and 
stare at the com growing. And you will look with a know- 
ing eye at oxen, and will have a tendency to clambei 
over into pig-sties, and feel of the hogs, and give a guess 
How much they will weigh after you shall have stuck 
and dressed them. Already I have noticed you begin 
to speak through your nose, and with a drawl. Pray, if 
you really did make any poetry to-day, let us hear it 
in that kind of utterance ! ” 

“ Coverdale has given up making verses now,” said 
Hollingsworth, who never had the slightest appreciation 
of my poetry. “Just think of him penning a sonnet 
wifn a fist like that ! There is at least this good in a 
life of toil, that it takes the nonsense and fancy-work out 
of a man, and leaves nothing but what truly belongs to 
him. If a farmer can make poetry at the plough-tail, it 
must be because his nature insists on it; and if 1 bat be 
the case, let him make it in Heaven’s narrv* ” 

£ 


62 


THE BLITHE DALE ROMANCE. 


1 And how is it with you ? ” asked Zenobia, in a dif- 
ferent voice ; for she never laughed at Hollingsworth, 
as she often did at me. “ You, I think, cannot have 
ceased to live a life of thought and feeling.” 

“ I have always been in earnest,” answered Holling? 
worth. “ I have hammered thought out of iron, aftoi 
heating the iron in my heart ! It matters little whs ♦. 
my outward toil may be. Were I a slave at the bottom 
of a mine, I should keep the same purpose, the same 
faith in its ultimate accomplishment, that I do now. 
Miles Coverdale is not in earnest, either as ? poet or a 
laborer.” 

“ You give me hard measure, Hollingsworth,” said 
I, a little hurt. “I have kept pace with you in the field; 
and my bones feel as if I had been in earnest, what- 
ever may be the case with my brain ! ” 

“ I cannot conceive,” observed Zenobia, with great 
emphasis, — and, no doubt, she spoke fairly the feeling 
of the moment, — “I cannot conceive of being so con- 
tinually as Mr. Coverdale is within the sphere of a 
strong and noble nature, without being strengthened 
and ennobled by its influence ! ” 

This amiable remark of the fair Zenobia confirmed 
me in what I had already begun to suspect, that Hol- 
lingsworth, like many other illustrious prophets, reform- 
ers and philanthropists, was likely to make at least two 
proselytes among the women to One among the men. 
Zenobia and Priscilla ! These, I believe (unless my 
unworthy self might be reckoned for a third), were the 
only disciples of his mission ; and I spent a great deal of 
time, uselessly, in trying to conjecture what Hollings 
worth meant to do with them — and they with him ! 


IX. 

HOLLINGSWORTH, ZENOBIA, PRISCILLA. 

It is not, I apprehend, a healthy kind of mental 
occupation, to devote ourselves too exclusively to the 
study of individual men and women. If the person 
under examination be one’s self} the result is pretty 
certain to be diseased action of the heart, almost before 
we can snatch a second glance. Or, if we take the 
freedom to put a friend under our microscope, we 
tnereby insulate him from many of his true relations, 
magnify his peculiarities, inevitably tear him into parts, 
and, of course, patch him very clumsily together again. 
What wonder, then, should we be frightened by the 
aspect of a monster, which, after all, — though we can 
point to every feature of his deformity in the real per- 
sonage, — may be said to have been created mainly by 
ourselves. 

Thus, as my conscience has often whispered me, I 
did Hollingsworth a great wrong by prying into his 
character ; and am perhaps doing him as great a one, at 
this moment, by putting faith in the discoveries which I 
seemed to make. But I could not help it. Had I loved 
him less, I might have used him better. He — and 
Zenobia and Priscilla, both for their own sakes and as 
connected with him — were separated from the rest of 
the Community, to my imagination, and stood forth as 
the indices of a problem which it was my business to 


54 


THE BLilHEDALE ROMANCE. 


solve. Other associates had a portion of my time , 
other matters amused me ; passing occurrences carried 
me along with them, while they lasted. But here wa? 
the vortex of my meditations around which they 
revolved, and whitherward they too continually tended. 
In the midst of cheerful society, I had often a feeling 
of loneliness. For it was impossible not to be sensible 
that, while these three characters figured so largely on 
my private theatre, I — though probably reckoned as a 
friend by ail — was at best but a secondary or tertiary 
personage with either of them. 

I loved Hollingsworth, as has already been enough 
expressed. But it impressed me, more and more, that 
there was a stern and dreadful peculiarity in this man, 
such as could not prove otherwise than pernicious to 
the happiness of those who should be drawn into too 
intimate a connection with him. He was not alto<rether 
human. There was something else in Hollingsworth 
besides flesh and blood, and sympathies and affections 
and celestial spirit. 

This is always true of those men wh ■» have surren- 
dered themselves to an overruling purpose. It does 
not so much impel them from without, nor even operate 
as a motive power within, but grows incorporate with 
all that they think and feel, and finally converts them 
into little else save that one principle. When such 
begins to be the predicament, it is not cowardice, but 
wisdom, to avoid these victims. They have no heart 
no sympathy, no reason, no conscience. They will 
keep no friend, unless he make himself the mirror ot 
their purpose ; they will smite and slay you, and tramole 
your dead -.orpse under foot, all the more readily, if yoi' 


HOLLINGSWORTH, ZENOBIA, PRISCILLA. 85 

Lake die first step with them, and cannot take the 
second, and the third, and every other step of their ter 
rib] y straight path. They have an idol, to which they 
consecrate themselves high-priest, and deem it holy work 
to offer sacrifices of whatever is most precious ; and never 
once seem to suspect — so cunning has the devil been 
with them — that this false deity, in whose iron features, 
immitigable to all the rest of mankind, they see only 
benignity and love, is but a spectrum of the very priest 
himself, projected upon the surrounding darkness. And 
the higher and purer the original object, and the mor* 
unselfishly it may have been taken up, the slighter is 
the probability that they can be led to recognize the pro- 
cess by which godlike benevolence has been debased 
into all-devouring egotism. 

Of course, I am perfectly aware that the above state- 
ment is exaggerated, in the attempt to make it adequate. 
Professed philanthropists have gone far ; but no origin- 
ally good man, I presume, ever went quite so far as 
this. Let the reader abate whatever he deems fit. The 
paragraph may remain, however, both for its truth and 
its exaggeration, as strongly expressive of the tendencies 
which were really operative in Hollingsworth, and as 
exemplifying the kind of error into which my mode of 
observation was calculated to lead me. The issue was, 
that in solitude I often shuddered at my friend. In my 
recollection of his dark and impressive countenance, the 
features grew more sternly prominent than the reality, 
duskier in their depth and shadow, and more lurid in 
tneir light ; the frown, that had merely flitted across hiy 
brow, seemed to have contorted it with an adamantine 
wrinkle. On meeting him again, I was often filled with 


^0 THE BLITHEDALE ROMANCE. 

remorse, when his deep eyes beamed kindly upon me, as 
with the glow of a household fire that was bun. ing in a 
cave. He is a man, after all,” thought I ; “ his Mak- 
er’s own truest image, a philanthropic man ! — not that 
steel engine of the devil’s contrivance, a philanthropist ! ” 
But in my wood-walks, and in my silent cl amber, ti 1 
dark face frowned at me again. 

When a young girl comes within the sphere of such a 
man, she is as perilously situated as the maiden whom, 
in the old classical myths, the people used to expose to a 
dragon. If I had any duty whatever, in reference to 
Hollingsworth, it was to endeavor to save Priscilla from 
that kind of personal worship which her sex is generally 
prone to lavish upon saints and heroes. It often requires 
but one smile out of the hero’s eyes into the girl’s or 
woman’s heart, to transform this devotion, from a senti- 
ment of the highest approval and confidence, into pas- 
sionate love. Now, Hollingsworth smiled much upon 
Priscilla, — more than upon any other person. If she 
thought him beautiful, it was no wonder. I often 
thought him so, with the expression of tender human 
care and gentlest sympathy which she alone seemed to 
have power to call out upon his features. Zenobia, I 
suspect, would have given her eyes, bright as they were, 
for such a look; — it was the least that our poor Pris- 
cilla could do, to give her heart for a great many of 
them. There was the more danger of this, inasmuch as 
the footing on which we all associated at Bhthedale was 
widely different from that of conventional society. 
While inclining us to the soft affections of the golden 
ftge, it seemed to authorize any individual, of either sex 
to fall in love with any other, regardless of what would 


HOLLINGSWORTH, ZENOBIA, PRISCILLA. 81 

elsewhere be judged suitable and prudent. Accordingly 
tne tender passion was very rife among us, in various 
degree* of mildness or virulence, but mostly passing 
away v ith the state of things that had given it origin. 
This was all well enough ; but, for a girl like Priscilla 
and a woman like Zenobia to jostle one another in their 
love of a man like Hollingsworth, was likely to be no 
child’s play. 

Had I been as cold-hearted as I sometimes thought 
myself, nothing would have interested me more than to 
witness the play of passions that must thus have been 
evolved. But, in honest truth, I would really have gone 
far to save Priscilla, at least, from the catastrophe in 
which such a drama would be apt to terminate. 

Priscilla had now grown to be a very pretty girl, and 
still kept budding and blossoming, and daily putting on 
some new charm, which you no sooner became sensible 
of than you thought it worth all that she had previously 
possessed. So unformed, vague, and without substance, 
as she had come to us, it seemed as if we could see 
Nature shaping out a woman before our very eyes, and 
yet had only a more reverential sense of the mystery of 
a woman’s soul and frame. Yesterday, her cheek was 
pale, — to-day, it had a bloom. Priscilla’s smile, like a 
baby’s first one, was a wondrous novelty. Her imperfec- 
tions and short-comings affected me with a kind of playful 
pathos, which was as absolutely bewitching a sensation 
as ever I experienced. After she had been a month or 
twr at Blithedale, her animal spirits waxed high, and 
kept ag r pretty constantly in a state of bubble and fer- 
ment, impelling her to far more bodily activity than she 
had yet strength to endure. She was very fond of play 


88 THE BLITHE DALE KOMAiNCE. 

mg with the other girls out of doors. There is hardlv 
another sight in the world so pretty as that of a com 
pany of young girls, almost women grown, at play, and 
so giving themselves up to their airy impulse that their 
tiptoes barely touch the ground. 

Girls are incomparably wilder and more effervescent 
than boys, more .untamable, and regardless of rule and 
limit, with an ever-shifting variety, breaking continually 
into new modes of fun, yet with a harmonious propriety 
through all. Their steps, their voices, appear free as 
the wind, but keep consonance with a strain of music 
inaudible to us. Young men and boys, on the other 
nand, play, according to recognized law, old, tradition- 
ary games, permitting no caprioles of fancy, but with 
scope enough for the outbreak of savage instincts. For. 
young or old, in play or in earnest, man is prone to be 
a brute. 

Especially is it delightful to see a vigorous young girl 
run a race, with her head thrown back, her limbs mov- 
ing more friskily than they need, and an air between that 
of a bird and a young colt. But Priscilla’s peculiar 
zharm, in a foot-race, was the weakness and irregularity 
with which she ran. Growing up without exercise, 
except to her poor little fingers, she had ne ^er yet 
acquired the perfect use of her legs. Setting buoyantly 
forth, therefore, as if no rival less swift than Atalanta 
could compete with her, she ran faltering] y, and often 
tumbled on the grass. Such an incident — though it 
seems too slight to think of — was a thing to laugh at 
but which brought the water into one’s eyes, and lingered 
m the memory after far greater joys and sorrows were 
wept out of it, as antiquated tra^h. Priscilla’s life, a: 


HOLLINGSWORTH, ZENOBIA, PRISCILLA. 


89 


I beheld it, was full of trifles that affected me in just this 
way. 

When she had come to be quite at home among us, 
I used to fancy that Priscilla played more pranks, and 
perpetrated more mischief, than any other girl in the 
Community. For example, I once heard Silas Foster, 
in a very gruff voice, threatening to rivet three horse- 
shoes round Priscilla’s neck and chain her to a post, 
because she, with some other young people, had clam- 
bered upon a load of hay, and caused it to slide off the 
cart. How she made her peace I never knew ; but very 
soon afterwards I saw old Silas, with his brawny hands 
round Priscilla’s waist, swinging her to and fro, and 
finally depositing her on one of the oxen, to take her 
first lessons in riding. She met with terrible mishaps 
in her efforts to milk a cow ; she let the poultry into the 
garden ; she generally spoilt whatever part of the dinner 
she took in charge ; she broke crockery ; she dropt our 
biggest pitcher into the well; and — except with her 
needle, and those little wooden instruments for purse- 
making — was as unserviceable a member of society as 
any young lady in the land. There was no other sort 
of efficiency about her. Yet everybody was kind to 
Priscilla , everybody loved her and laughed at her to her 
face, and did not laugh behind her back ; everybody 
would have given her half of his last crust, or the bigger 
share of his plum-cake. These w r ere pretty certain indi- 
cations that we were all conscious of a pleasant weak- 
ness in the girl, and considered her not quite able to 
look after her own interests, or fight her battle with the 
world. And Hollingsworth — perhaps because he had 
been the means of introducing Priscilla to her new 


90 


THE BLI1 HE DALE ROMANCE. 


abode -- appeared to recognize her as his own especial 
charge. 

Her simple, careless, childish flow of spirits often 
made me sad. She seemed to me like a butterfly at 
play in a flickering bit of sunshine, and mistaking it for 

broad and eternal summer. We sometimes hold mirth 
to a stricter accountability than sorrow ; — it must show 
good cause, or the echo of its laughter comes back 
drearily. Priscilla’s gayety, moreover, was of a nature 
that showed me how delicate an instrument she was 
and what fragile harp-strings were her nerves. As they 
made sweet music at the airiest touch, it would require 
but a stronger one to burst them all asunder. Absurd 
as it might be, I tried to reason with her, and persuade 
her not to be so joyous, thinking that, if she would draw 
less lavishly upon her fund of happiness, it would last 
the longer. I remember doing so, one summer evening, 
when we tired laborers sat looking on, like Goldsmith’s 
old folks under the village thorn-tree, while the young 
people were at their sports. 

“ What is the use or sense of being so very gay ? ” I 
said to Priscilla, while she was taking breath, after a 
great frolic. “ I love tc :ee a sufficient cause for every- 
thing ; and I can see none for this. Pray tell me, now, 
vhat kind of a world you imagine this to be, which you 
are so merry in.” 

“ I never think about it at all,” answered Priscilla 
laughing. “ But this I am sure of, that it is a world 
Adhere everybody is kind to me, and where I love every- 
body. My heart keeps dancing within me, and all the 
foolish things which you see me do are o/ily the 


HOLLINGSWORTH, ZENOBIA, PRISCILLA, 


91 


{notions of my heart. How can I be dismal, if my l.eart 
*•*111 not let me ? ” 

“ Have you nothing' dismal to remember ? ” I sug- 
gested. “ If not, then, indeed, you are very fortu- 
nate ! ” 

“ Ah ! ” said Priscilla, slowly. 

And then came that unintelligible gesture, when she 
seemed to be listening to a distant voice. 

“For my part,” I continued, beneficently seeking to 
overshadow her with my own sombre humor, “ my past 
life has been a tiresome one enough ; yet I would rather 
look backward ten times than forward once. For, little 
as we know of our life to come, we may be very sure, for 
one thing, that the good we aim at will not be attained. 
People never do get just the good they seek. If it come 
at all, it is something else, which they never dreamed 
of, and did not particularly want. Then, again, we 
may rest certain that our friends of to-day will not be 
our friends of a few years hence ; but, if we keep one of 
them, it will be at the expense of the others ; and, most 
probably, we shall keep none. To be sure, there are 
more to be had ; but who cares about making a new set 
of friends, even should they be better than those around 
us ? ” 

“Not I ! ” said Priscilla. “ I will live and die with 
these ! ” 

“Well; but let the future go,” resumed I. “As for 
the present moment, if we could look into the hearts 
where we wish to be most valued, what should you 
expect to see ? One’s own likeness, in the innermost, 
noliest niche ? Ah ! I don’t know ! It may not. be there 
nt all It may be a dusty image, thrust asi le into * 


92 


THE BLITHEDA^E ROMANCE 


coruer, and by and by to be flung- out of doors, where 
any foot may trample upon it. If not to-day, then to- 
morrow ! And so, Priscilla, I do not see much wisdom 
in being so very merry in this kind of a worid.” 

It had taken me nearly seven years of worldly life to 
hive up the bitter honey which I here offered to Priscilla. 
And she rejected it ! 

“ I don’t believe one word of what you say ! ” she 
replied, laughing anew. “ You made me sad, for a 
minute, by talking about the past ; but the past never 
comes back again. Do we dream the same dream 
twice ? There is nothing else that I am afraid of.” 

So away she ran, and fell down on the green grass, 
as it was often her luck to do, but got up again, without 
any harm. 

“ Priscilla, Priscilla ! ” cried Hollingsworth, who was 
sitting on the door-step ; “ you had better not run any 
more to-night. You will weary yourself too much. 
And do not sit down out of doors, for there is a heavy 
dew beginning to fall.” 

At his first word, she went and sat down under the 
porch, at Hollingsworth’s feet, entirely contented and 
happy. What charm was there in his rude massiveness 
that so attracted and soothed this shadow-like girl ? It 
appeared to me, who have always been curious in such 
matters, that Priscilla’s vague and seemingly causeless 
flow of felicitous feeling was that with which love blesses 
inexperienced hearts, before they begin to suspect what 
Is going on within them. It transports them to the 
seventh heaven; and, if you ask what brought them 
thither, they neither can tell nor care to learn but 


HOLLINGSWORTH, ZENOBIA, PRISCILLA. IW 

cherish an ecstatic faith that there they shall abide for 
ever. 

Zenobia was in the door-way, not far from Hollings- 
worth. She gazed at Priscilla in a very singular way 
Indeed, it was a sight worth gazing at, and a beautiful 
sight, too, as the fair girl sat at the feet of that dark, 
powerful figure. Her air, while perfectly modest, deli- 
cate and virgin-like, denoted her as swayed by Hol- 
lingsworth, attracted to him, and unconsciously seeking 
to rest upon his strength. I could not turn away my 
own eyes, but hoped that nobody, save Zenobia and 
myself, wore witnessing this picture. It is before me 
now, with the evening twilight a little deepened by the 
dusk of memory. 

“ Come hither, Priscilla,” said Zenobia. “ I have 
something to say to you.” 

She spoke in little more than a whisper. But it is 
strange how expressive of moods a whisper may often 
be. Priscilla felt at once that something had gone 
wrong. , 

“Are you angry with me ?” she asked, rising slowly, 
and standing before Zenobia in a drooping attitude. 
“ What have I done ? I hope you are not angry ! ” 

“ No, no, Priscilla !” said Hollingsworth, smiling. “ I 
will answer for it, she is not. You are the one little 
person in the world with whom nobody can be angry ! ” 
“ Angry with you, child ? What a silly idea ! ” 
exclaimed Zenobia, laughing. “ No, indeed ! But, my 
dear Priscilla, you are getting to be so very pretty that 
you absolutely need a duenna ; and, as I am older than 
you, anu have had my own little experience of life, and 
think myself exceedingly sage, I intend to fill the place 


y\ THE BLITHEDALE ROMANCE 

(■' a maiden-aunt. Every day, I shall give you a lec- 
1 .re, a quarter of an hour in length, on the morals, 
manners and proprieties, of social life. When our pas- 
toral shall be quite played out, Priscilla, my worldly 
wisdom may stand you in good stead.” 

“ I am afraid you are angry with me ! ” repeated Pris- 
cilla, sadly ; for, while she seemed as impressible as wax, 
the girl often showed a persistency in her own ideas as 
stubborn as it was gentle. 

“ Dear me, what can I say to the child ! ” cried Zeno- 
bia, in a tone of humorous vexation. “Well, well; 
since you insist on my being angry, come to my room, 
this moment, and let me beat you ! ” 

Zenobia bade Hollingsworth good-night very sweetly, 
and nodded to me with a smile. But, just as she 
turned aside with Priscilla into the dimness of the 
porch, I caught another glance at her countenance. 
It would have made the fortune cf a tragic actress, 
could she have borrowed it for the moment when she 
fumbles in her bosom lor the concealed dagger, or the 
exceedingly sharp bodkin, or mingles the ratsbane in 
her lover’s bowl of wine or her rival’s cup of tea. Not 
that I in the least anticipated any such catastrophe, — 
it being a remarkable truth that custom has in no one 
point a greater sway than over our modes of wreaking 
our wild passions. And, besides, had we been in Italy, 
instead of New England, it was hardly yet a crisis for 
the dagger or the bowl. 

It often amazed me, however, that Hollingsworth 
should show himself so recklessly tender towards Pris- 
cilla, and never once seem to think of the effect which 
it might have upon her heart. But the man, as I have 


HOLLINGSWORTH, ZKNOBIA, PRISCILLA. 


95 


endeavored to explain, was thrown completely off his 
moral balance, and quite bewildered as to his personal 
relations, by his great excrescence of a phila nthropic 
scheme. I used to see, or fancy, indications that he waf 
not altogether obtuse to Zenobia’s influence as a woman. 
No doubt, however, he had a still more exquisite enjoy- 
ment of Priscilla’s silent sympathy with his purposes, so 
unalloyed with criticism, and therefore more grateful 
than any intellectual approbation, which always involves 
a possible reserve of latent censure. A man — poet, 
prophet, or whatever he may be — readily persuades 
himself of his right to all the worship that is voluntarily 
tendered. In requital of so rich benefits as he was to 
confer upon mankind, it would have been hard to deny 
Hollingsworth the simple solace of a young girl’s heart, 
which he held in his hand, and smelled to, like a rose- 
bud. But what if, while pressing out its fragrance, he 
should crush the tender rosebud in his grasp ! 

As for Zenobia, I saw no occasion to give myself any 
trouble. With her native strength, and her experience 
of the world, she could not be supposed to need any 
help of mine. Nevertheless, I was really generous 
enough to feel some little interest likewise for Zenobia. 
With all her fa ults (which might have been a great 
many, besides the abundance that I knew of), she pos- 
sessed noble traits, and a heart which must at least have 
been valuable while new. And she seemed ready to 
fling it away as uncalculatingly as Priscilla herself. I 
could not but suspect that, if merely at play with Hol- 
lingsworth, she was sporting with a power which she 
did not fully estimate. Or, if in earnest, it mighi 
eh oa', between Zenobia 3 passionate foice, and his dark 


96 


THE BLlfHEHALE ROMANCE. 


self delusive egotism, to turn out such earnest as would 
develop itself in some sufficiently tragic catastrophe, 
though the dagger and the bowl should go for nothing 
in it. 

Meantime, the gossip of the Community set them 
down as a pair of lovers. They took walks together, 
and were not seldom encountered in the wood-paths ; 
Hollingsworth deeply discoursing, in tones solemn and 
sternly pathetic. Zenobia, with a rich glow on her 
cheeks, and her eyes softened from their ordinary bright 
ness, looked so beautiful, that, had her companion been 
ten times a philanthropist, it seemed impossible but 
that one glance should melt him back into a man. 
Oftener than anywhere else, they went to a certain 
point on the slope of a pasture, commanding nearly the 
whole of our own domain, besides a view*of the river, 
and an airy prospect of many distant hills. The bond 
of our Community was such, that the members had the 
privilege of building cottages for their own residence 
within our precincts, thus laying a hearth-stone and 
fencing in a home private and peculiar to all desirable 
extent, while yet the inhabitants should continue to 
share the advantages of an associated life. It was 
inferred that Hollingsworth and Zenobia intended to 
rear their dwelling on this favorite spot. 

I mentioned these rumors to Hollingsworth, in a play 
ful way. 

“ Had you consulted me,” I went on to observe, “ 1 
should have recommended a site further to the left, 
just a little withdrawn into the wood, with two or three 
peeps at the prospect, among the trees. You will be in 
the shady vale years, long before you can raise any 


COLLINGSWORTH, ZENOBIA, PRISCILLA. 


97 


Octter kind of shade around your cottage, if you build it 
on this bare slope.” 

“ But I offer my edifice as a spectacle to the world, M 
said Hollingsworth, “that it may take example and 
build many another like it. Therefore, I mean to set it 
on the open hill-side.” 

Twist these words how I might, they offered no very 
satisfactory import. It seemed hardl3 T probable that 
Hollingsworth should care about educating the public 
taste in the department of cottage architecture desirable 
as such improvement cerUinly was. 


X. 

A VISITER FROM TOWN. 


Hollingsworth and I — we had been hoeing potatoes, 
that forenoon, while the rest of the fraternity were 
engaged in a distant quarter of the farm — sat under a 
clump of maples, eating our eleven o’clock lunch, when 
we saw a stranger approaching along the edge of the 
field. He had admitted himself from the road-side 
through a turnstile, and seemed to have a purpose ot 
speaking with us. 

And, by the by, we were favored with many visits at 
Blithedale, especially from people who sympathized with 
our theories, and perhaps held themselves ready to unite 
in our actual experiment as soon as there should appear 
a reliable promise of its success. It was rather ludi- 
crous, indeed — (to me, at least, whose enthusiasm had 
insensibly been exhaled, together with the perspiration 
oi many a hard day’s toil), — it was absolutely funny, 
therefore, to observe what a glory was shed about our 
life and labors, in the imagination of these longing 
proselytes. In their view, we were as poetical as 
Arcadians, besides being as practical as the hardest- 
fisted husbandmen in Massachusetts. We did net, it is 
true, spend much time in piping to our sheep, or war- 
bling our innocent loves to the sisterhood. But they 
gave us credit for imbuing the ordinary rustic occupa- 
tions with a kind of religious poetry, insomuch that out 


A VISITER FROM TOWN. 


99 


very cow-yards and pig-sties were as delightfully fragrant 
as a dower-garden. Nothing used to please me more 
than to see one of these lay enthusiasts snatch up a hoe, 
as they were very prone to do, and set to work with n 
vigor that perhaps carried him through about a dozen 
ill-directed strokes. Men are wonderfully soon satisfied - 
in this day of shameful bodily enervation, when, from 
one end of life to the other, such multitudes never taste 
the sweet weariness that follows accustomed toil. I se»* 
dom saw the new enthusiasm that did not grow as flimsy 
and flaccid as the proselyte’s moistened shirt-collar, with 
a quarter of an hour’s active labor under a July sun. 

But the person now at hand had not at all the air of 
one of these amiable visionaries. He was an elderly 
man, dressed rather shabbily, yet decently enough, in a 
gray frock-coat, faded towards a brown hue, and wore a 
broad-brimmed white hat, of the fashion of several years 
gone by. His hair was perfect silver, without a dark 
thread in the whole of it ; his nose, though it had a 
scarlet tip, by nc means indicated the jollity of which a 
red nose is the generally admitted symbol. He was a 
subdued, undemonstrative old man, who would doubtless 
drink a glass of liquor, now and then, and probably more 
than was good for him ; — not, however, with a purpose 
of undue exhilaration, but in the hope of bringing his 
spirits up to the ordinary level of the world’s cheerful- 
ness. Drawing nearer, there was a shy look about him 
as if he were ashamed of his poverty ; or, at any rate, 
for some reason or other, would rather have ns glance 
at him sidelong than take a full front view. He had 
a queer appearance of hiding himself behind the patch 
on his left eye 


100 


THE BLITHE DALE ROMANCE. 


•• 1 know this old gentleman,” said I to H( llingswortYi, 
as we sat observing him ; “ that is, I have met him a 
hundred times in town, and have often amused my fancy 
with wondering what he was before he came to be what 
he is. He haunts restaurants and such places, and has 
an odd way of lurking in corners or getting behind a 
door, whenever practicable, and holding out his hand 
with some little article in it which he wishes you to 
buy. The eye of the world seems to trouble him, al- 
though he necessarily lives so much in it. I never 
expected to see him in an open field.” 

“ Have you learned anything of his J jstory ? ” asked 
Hollingsworth. 

“ Not a circumstance,” I answered ; “ but there must 
be something curious in it. I take him to be a harmless 
sort of a person, and a tolerably honest one ; but his 
manners, being so furtive, remind me of those of a rat, 
— a rat without the mischief, the fierce eye, the teeth to 
bite with, or the desire to bite. See, now ! He means 
to skulk along that fringe of bushes, and approach us 
on the other side of our clump of maples.” 

We soon heard the old man’s velvet tread on the 
grass, indicating that he had arrived within a few feet 
of where we sat. 

“ Good-morning, Mr. Moodie,” said Hollingsworth, 
addressing the stranger as an acquaintance ; “ you must 
have had a hot and tiresome walk from the city. Sit 
down, and take a morsel of our bread and cheese.” 

The visiter made a grateful little murmur of acquies- 
cence, and sat down in a spot somewhat removed; so 
that, glancing round, I could see his gray pantaloons and 
dusty shoes, while his upper part was mostly hidden be- 


A VISITER FROM TOWN. 


10 . 


hind the shrubbery. Nor did he come forth from this 
retirement during the whole of the interview that fol- 
‘owech We handed him such food as we had, together 
with a brown jug of molasses and water (would that it 
had been brandy, or something better, for the sake of his 
chill old heart!), like priests offering dainty sacrifice to an 
enshrined and invisible idol. I have no idea that he 
really lacked sustenance; but it was quite touching, 
nevertheless, to hear him nibbling away at our crusts.” 

“ Mr. Moodie,” said I, “ do you remember selling me 
one of those very pretty little silk purses, of which you 
seem to have a monopoly in the market ? I keep it to 
this day, I can assure you.” 

“ Ah, thank you,” said our guest. “ Yes, Mr. Cover- 
dale, I used to sell a good many of those little purses.” 

He spoke languidly, and only those few words, like a 
watch with an inelastic spring, that just ticks a moment 
or two, and stops again. He seemed a very forlorn old 
man. In the wantonness of youth, strength, and com- 
fortable condition, — making my prey of people’s indi- 
vidualities, as my custom was, — I tried to identify my 
mind with the old fellow’s, and take his v.ew of the 
world, as if looking through a smoke-blackened glass at 
the sun. It robbed the landscape of all its life. Those 
pleasantly swelling slopes of our farm, descending towards 
the wide meadows, through which sluggishly circled the 
brimful tide of the Charles, bathing the long sedges on 
its hither and further shores ; the broad, sunn} gleam 
over the winding water ; that peculiar picturesqueness 
of the scene where capes and headlands put themselves 
boldly forth upon the perfect level of the meadow, as 
into a green lake, with inlets between the promontori** 


IU2 THE BLITHEDALE ROMANCE. 

the shadowy woodland, with twinkling showers of light 
falling into its depths; the sultry heat-vapor, which rose 
everywhere like incense, and in which my soul delighted, 
as indicating so rich a fervor in the passionate day, and 
in the earth that was burning with its love ; — I beheld 
all these things as through old Moodie’s eyes. When 
my eyes are dimmer than they have yet come to be, J 
will go thither again, and see if I did not catch the tone 
of his mind aright, and if the cold and lifeless tint of 
his perceptions be not then repeated in my own. 

Yet it was unaccountable to myself, the interest that I 
felt in him. 

“ Have you any objection,” said 1, “to telling me who 
made those little purses ? ” 

“ Gentlemen have often asked me that,” said Moodie, 
slowly ; “ but I shake my head, and say little or nothing, 
and creep out of the way as well as I can. I am a man 
of few words ; and if gentlemen were to be told one 
thing, they would be very apt, I suppose, to ask me 
another. But it happens, just now, Mr. Coverdale that 
you can tell me more about the maker of those little 
purses than I can tell you.” 

“Why do you trouble him with needless questions, 
Coverdale?” interrupted Hollingsworth. “You must 
have known, long ago, that it was Priscilla. And sc, 
my good friend, you have come to see her? Well, I 
am glad of it. You will find her altered very mui.h for 
the better, since that winter evening when you put her 
into my charge. Why, Priscilla has a bicam in he; 
cheeks, now ! ” 

“ Has my pale little girl a bloom?” repeated Moodie, 
with a kind of slow wonder. “Priscilla with a bloom 


A VISITER FROM TOWN. 


103 


in her cheeks ! Ah, I am afraid I shall not know my 
.ittle girl. And is she happy ? ” 

“ Just as huppy as a bird,” answered Hollingsworth. 

“ Then, gentlemen,” said our guest, apprehensively, 
“ I don’t think it well for me to go any further. I crept 
hitherward only to ask about Priscilla; and now that 
you have told me such good news, perhaps I can do no 
better than to creep back again. If she were to see this 
old face of mine, the child would remember some very 
sad times which we have spent together. Some very 
sad times, indeed ! She has forgotten them, I know, — 
them and me, — else she could not be so happy, nor 
have a bloom in her cheeks. Yes — yes — yes,” con- 
tinued he, still with the same torpid utterance ; “ with 
many thanks to you, Mr. Hollingsworth, I will creep 
back to town again.” 

“ You shall do no such thing, Mr. Moodie,” said Hol- 
lingsworth, bluffly. “ Priscilla often speaks of you ; and 
if there lacks anything to make her cheeks bloom like 
two damask roses, I ’ll venture to say it is just the sight 
of your face. Come, — we will go and find her.” 

“ Mr. Hollingsworth ! ” said the old man, in his hesi- 
tating way. 

“ Well,” answered Hollingsworth. 

“Has there been any call for Priscilla?” asked 
Moodie ; and though his face was hidden from us, his 
tone gave a sure indication of the mysterious nod and 
wink with which he put the question. “ You know, 1 
think, sir, what I mean.” 

“ I have not the remotest suspicion what you mean, 
Mr. Moodie,” replied Hollingsworth ; “ nobody, to my 
knowledge, has called for Priscilla, except yourself Put 


104 


THE E^IilEDALE ROMANCE. 


come ; we are losing timr, and 1 nave several thirty tn 
say to you by the way.” 

“ And, Mr. Hollingsworth ! ” repeated Moodie. 

“Well, again!” cried my friend, rather impatiently 
u What now ? ” 

“ There is a lady here,” said the old man ; and his 
voice lost some of its wearisome hesitation. “ You will 
account it a very strange matter for me to talk about ; 
but I chanced to know this lady when she was but a 
little child. If I am rightly informed, she has grown tc 
be a very fine woman, and makes a brilliant figure in 
the world, with her beauty, and her talents, and her 
noble way of spending her riches. I should recognize 
this lady, so people tell me, by a magnificent flower in 
her hair.” 

“What a rich tinge it gives to his colorless ideas, 
when he speaks of Zenobia ! ” I whispered to Hollings- 
worth. “ But how can there possibly be any interest or 
connecting link between him and her ? ” 

“ The old man, for years past,” whispered Hollings- 
worth, “has been a little out of his right mind, as you 
probably see.” 

“What I would inquire,” resumed Moodie, “is, 
whether this beautiful lady is kind to my poor Priscilla.” 

“ Very kind,” said Hollingsworth. 

“ Does she love her ? ” asked Moodie. 

l ' It should seem so,” answered my friend. “ They 
are always together.” 

“ Like a gentlewoman and her maid-servant, I fancy?” 
tuggested the old man. 

There was something so singular in his way of say 
mg this, ths f , I could not resist the impulse 10 turn quite 


A VISITER FROM TOWN. 


105 


riund, so as to catch a glimpse of his face, almost 
imagining that I should see another person than old 
Moodie. But there he sat, with the patched side of his 
face towards me. 

“Like an elder and younger sister, rather,” replied 
Hollingsworth. 

“ Ah ! ” said Moodie, more complacently, — for his 
latter tones hau harshness and acidity in them, — “ it 
would gladden my old heart to witness that. If one 
thing would make me happier than another, Mr. Hol- 
lingsworth, it would be to see that beautiful lady hold- 
ing my little girl by the hand.” 

“Come along,” said Hollingsworth, “and perhaps 
you may.” 

After a little more delay on the part of our freakish 
visiter, they set forth together, old Moodie keeping a 
step or two behind Hollingsworth, so that the latter 
could not very conveniently look him in the face. 1 
remained under the tuft of maples, doing my utmost to 
draw an inference from the scene that had just passed. 
In spite of Hollingsworth’s off-hand explanation, it did 
not strike me that our strange guest was really beside 
himself, but only that his mind needed screwing up, like 
an instrument long out of tune, the strings of which 
have ceased to vibrate smartly and sharply. Methought 
it would be profitable for us, projectors of a happy life, 
to welcome this old gray shadow, and cherish him as 
one of us, and let him creep about our domain, in order 
that he might be a little merrier for our sakes, and we, 
sometimes, a little sadder for his. Human destinies 
look ominous without some perceptible intermixture of 
the sable or the gray. And then, too, should any of our 


06 


THE BLITHEDALE ROMANCE. 


fraternity grow feverish with an over-exulting senx of 
prosperity, it would be a sort of cooling regimen to slink 
off into the woods, and spend an hour, or a day, or as 
many days as might be requisite to the cure, in unmter 
rupted communion with this deplorable old Moodie ! 

Going homeward to dinner, I had a glimpse of him, 
bek’nd the trunk of a tree, gazing earnestly towards a 
particular window of the farm-house; and, by and by, 
Priscilla appeared at this window, playfully drawing 
along Zenobia, who looked as bright as the very day 
that was blazing down upon us, only not, by many 
degrees, so well advanced towards her noon. I was 
convinced that this pretty sight must have been pur- 
posely arranged by Priscilla for the old man to see. 
ziut either the girl held her too long, or her fondness 
was resented as too great a freedom ; for Zenobia sud- 
lenly pnt Priscilla decidedly away, and gave her a 
naughty look, as from a mistress to a dependant. Old 
Moodie shook his head; and again and again I saw 
him sb*ke it, as he withdrew along the road; and, at 
the laM point whence the farm-house was visible, he 
turned shook his uplifted staff. 


XI. 

THE WOOD-PATH. 

Not long after the preceding incident, in order to get 
the ache of too constant labor out of my bones, and to 
relieve my spirit of the irksomeness of a settled routine, 
1 took a holiday, it was my purpose to spend it, all 
alone, from breakfast-time till twilight, in the deepest 
wood-seclusion that lay anywhere around us. Though 
fond of society, I was so constituted as to need these 
occasional retirements, even in a life like that of Blithe- 
dale, which was itself characterized by a remoteness 
from the world. Unless renewed by a yet further with- 
drawal towards the inner circle of self-communion, I lost 
the better part of my individuality. My thoughts be- 
came of little worth, and my sensibilities grew as arid 
as a tuft of moss (a thing whose life is in the shade, the 
rain, or the noontide dew), crumbling in the sunshine, 
after long expectance of a shower. So, with my heart 
full of a drowsy pleasure, and cautious not to dissipate 
my mood by previous intercourse with any one, I hurried 
away, and was soon pacing a wood-path, arched over 
head with boughs, and dusky-brown beneath my feet. 

At first, I walked very swiftly, as if the heavy flood- 
tide of social life were roaring at my heels, and would 
outstrip and overwhelm me, without all the better dili- 
gence in my escape. But, threading the more distant 
windings of the track, J abated pace, and looked 


108 


THE BLITHEDALE liOMA .<fCE. 


about me foi some side-aisle, that should admit me into 
the innermost sanctuary of this green cathedral, just as, 
in human acquaintanceship, a casual opening some times 
lets us, all of a sudden, into the long-sought intimacy of 
a mysterious heart. So ncj :h was I absorbed in my 
reflections, — or, rather, in my mood, the substance of 
which was as yet too shapeless to be called thought, — 
that footsteps rustled on the leaves, and a figure passed 
me by, almost without impressing either the sound ot 
sight upon my consciousness. 

A moment afterwards, I heard a voice at a little dis- 
tance behind me, speaking so sharply and impertinently 
that it made a complete discord with my spiritual state, 
and caused the latter to vanish as abruptly as when 
you thrust a finger into a soap-bubble. 

“ Halloo, friend ! ” cried this most unseasonable voice. 
‘•'Stop a moment, I say! I must have a word with 
you ! ” 

I turned about, in a humor ludicrously irate. In the 
first place, the interruption, at any rate, was a grievous 
injury; then, the tone displeased me. And, finally, 
unless there be real affection in his heart, a man cannot, 
— such is the bad state to which the world has brought 
itself, — cannot more effectually show his contempt for 
a brother-mortal, nor more gallingly assume a position 
of superiority, than by addressing him as “ friend.’ 1 
Especially does the misapplication of this phrase bring 
out that latent hostility which is sure to animate peculiar 
sects, and those who, with however generous a purpose, 
have sequestered themselves from the crowd; a feeling, 
it is true, which may be hidden in some dog-kennel of 
the heart, grumbling there in the darkness, but is nevfi 


THE WOOD-rATH. 


109 


quite extinct, untill the dissenting party have gained 
power and scope enough to treat the world generously, 
for my part, I should have taken it as far less an insult 
to be styled c - fellow,” “clown,” or “bumpkin.” To 
either of these appellations my rustic garb (it was a 
linen blouse, with checked shirt and striped pantaloons, 
a chip-hat on my head, and a rough hickory-stick in my 
baud) very fairly entitled me. As the case stood, my 
temper darted at once to the opposite pole ; not friend, 
but enemy ! 

ci What do you want with me ? ” said I, facing about. 

•Come a little nearer, friend,” said the stranger, 
beckoning. 

“ No,” answered I. “If I can do anything for you, 
without too much trouble to myself, say so. But 
recollect, if you please, that you are not speaking to an 
acquaintance, much less a friend ! ” 

“ Upon my word, I believe not ! ” retorted he, looking 
at me with some curiosity ; and, lifting his hat, he made 
me a salute which had enough of sarcasm to be offens- 
ive, and just enough of doubtful courtesy to render any 
resentment of it absurd. “ But I ask your pardon ! 1 

recognize a little mistake. If I may take the liberty to 
suppose it, you, sir, are probably one of the aesthetic — 
or shall I rather say ecstatic ? — laborers, who have 
planted themselves hereabouts. This is your forest of 
Arden ; and you are either the banished Duke in person, 
or one of the chief nobles in his train. The melancholy 
Jacques, perhaps? Be it so. In that case, you can 
probably do me a favor.” 

I never, in my life, felt less inclined to coniet a favor 
an any man. 


no 


TIIE BLITHEDALE ROMANCE. 


“ I am busy,” said I. 

So unexpectedly had the stranger made m: sensible 
of his presence, that he had almost the effect of .in ap- 
parition; and certainly a less appropriate one (taking 
into view the dim woodland solitude about us) than it 
the salvage man of antiquity, hirsute and cinctured with 
& leafy girdle, had started out of a thicket. He was 
still young, seemingly a little under thirty, of a tall and 
well-developed figure, and as handsome a man as ever I 
beheld. The style of his beauty, however, though a 
masculine style, did not at all commend itself to my 
taste. His countenance — I hardly know how to de- 
scribe the peculiarity — had an indecorum in it, a kind 
of rudeness, a hard, coarse, forth-putting freedom of 
expression, which no degree of external polish could 
have abated one single jot. Not that it was vulgar. 
But he had no fineness of nature ; there was in his eyes 
(although they might have artifice enough of another 
sort) the naked exposure of something that ought not to 
be left prominent. With these vague allusions to what 
I have seen in other faces, as well as his, I leave the 
quality to be comprehended best — because with an intu- 
itive repugnance — by those who possess least of it. 

His hair, as well as his beard and mustache, was 
coal-black ; his eyes, too, were black and sparkling, and 
his teeth remarkably brilliant. He was rather care- 
lessly but well and fashionably dressed, in a summer- 
morning costume. There was a gold chain, exquisitely 
wrought, across his vest. I never saw a smoother or 
whiter gloss than thr.t upon his shirt-bosom, which had 
a pin in it, set with a gem that glimmered, in the leafy 
shadow where he stood, like a living tip of fire. He 


I HE WOOD -PATH. 


Ill 


carried a stick with a wooden head, carved in vivid im- 
itation of that of a serpent. I hated him, partly, I do 
believe, from a comparison of my own homely garb with 
his well-ordered foppishness. 

“ Well, sir,” said I, a little ashamed of my first irrita- 
tion, bat still with no waste of civility, “ be pleased to 
speak at once, as I have my own business in hand.” 

“ I regret that my mode of addressing you was a .ittle 
unfortunate, ” said the stranger, smiling; for he seemed 
a very acute sort of person, and saw, in some degree, 
how I stood affected towards him. “ I intended no 
offence, and shall certainly comport myself with due cer- 
emony hereafter. I merely wish to make a few inquiries 
respecting a lady, formerly of my acquaintance, who is 
now resident in your Community, and, I believe, largely 
concerned in your social enterprise. You call her, I 
think, Zenobia.” 

“That is her name in literature,” observed I; “a 
name, too, which possibly she may permit her private 
friends to know and address her by, — but not one which 
they feel at lib? rty to recognize when used of her, per- 
sonally, by a stranger or casual acquaintance.” 

“ Indeed ! ” answered this disagreeable person ; and 
he turned aside his face for an instant with a brief laugh, 
which struck me as a note-worthy expression of his 
character. “ Perhaps I might put forward a claim, on 
your own grounds, to call the lady by a name so appro 
priate to her splendid qualities. But I am willing to 
know her by any cognomen that you may suggest.” 

Heartily wishing that he would be either a little more 
offensive, or a good deal less so, or break off our inter- 
course altogether, I mentioned Zenobia’s real name. 


112 


TIIE BLITHE DALE ROMANCE. 


“ True,” said he ; “ and, in general society, i have 
never heard her called otherwise. And, after all, our 
discussion of the point has been gratuitous. My object 
is only to inquire when, where and how, this lady may 
most conveniently be seen.” 

“At her present residence, of course,” I replied. 
“You have but to go thither and ask for her. This 
very path will lead you within sight of the house ; so 1 
wish you good-morning.” 

“ One moment, if you please,” said the stranger. 
“ The course you indicate would certainly be the proper 
one, in an ordinary morning call. But my business is 
private, personal, and somewhat peculiar. Now, in a 
community like this, I should judge that any little occur- 
rence is likely to be discussed rather more minutely than 
would quite suit my views. I refer solely to myself, 
you understand, and without intimating that it w r ould 
be other than a matter of entire indifference to the lady. 
In short, I especially desire to see her in private. If her 
habits are such as I have known them, she is probably 
often to be met with in the woods, or by the river-side ; 
and I think you could do me the favor to point out some 
favorite walk where, about this hour, I might be fortu* 
nate enough to gain an interview.” 

I reflected that it would be quite a supererogatory piece 
of Quixotism in me to undertake the guardianship of Zeno 
bia, who, for my pains, would only make me the butt of 
endless ridicule, should the fact ever come to her knowl 
edge. I therefore described a spot which, as often as 
any other, was Zenobia’s resort at this period cf the 
nor was it so remote from the farm-house as fc 


THE WOOD-FATF. 


113 


leave her in much peril, whatever might be the stranger 8 
character. 

A single word more,” said he ; and his black eyes 
sparkled at me, whether with fun or malice I knew' not, 
but certainly as if the devil were peeping out of them. 
w Among your fraternity, I understand, there is a certain 
holy and benevolent blacksmith ; a man of iron, in more 
senses than one; a rough, cross-grained, well-meaning 
individual, rather boorish in his manners, as might be 
expected, and by no means of the highest intellectual 
cultivation. He is a philanthropical lecturer, with two 
or three disciples, and a scheme of his own, the prelim- 
inary step in which involves a large purchase of land, and 
the erection of a spacious edifice, at an expense consid- 
erably beyond his means ; inasmuch as these are to be 
reckoned in copper or old iron much more conveniently 
than in gold or silver. He hammers away upon his one 
topic as lustily as ever he did upon a horse-shoe ! Do 
you know such a person ? ” 

I shook my head, and was turning away. 

“ Our friend,” he continued, “ is described to me as a 
brawny, shaggy, grim and ill-favored personage, not par- 
ticularly w r ell calculated, one would say, to insinuate 
himself with the softer sex. Yet, so far has this honest 
fellow succeeded with one lady whom we w r ot of, that he 
anticipates, from her abundant resources, the necessary 
funds for realizing his plan in brick and mortar ! ” 

Here the stranger seemed to be so much amused with 
his sketch of Hollingsworth’s character and purposes, 
that he burst into a fit of merriment, of the same na- 
ture as the brief, metallic laugh, already alluded to. 
but imme nsely prolonged and enlarged. In the excess 
8 


114 


THE BL1THEDALE ROMANCE. 


of his delight, he opened his mouth wide, and disposed 
a gold band around the upper part of his teeth thereby 
making it apparent that every one of his brilliant grind- 
ers and incisors was a sham. This discovery affected 
me very oddly. I felt as if the whole man were a moral 
and physical humbug ; his wonderful beauty of face, for 
aught I knew, might be removable like a mask ; and, 
tall and comely as his figure looked, he was perhaps but 
a wizened little elf, gray and decrepit, with nothing gen- 
uine about him, save the wicked expression of his grin. 
The fantasy of his spectral character so wrought upon 
me, together with the contagion of his strange mirth on 
my sympathies, that I soon began to laugh as loudly as 
himself. 

By and by, he paused all at once; so suddenly, 
indeed, that my own cachinnation lasted a moment 
longer. 

“ Ah, excuse me ! *’ said he. “ Our interview seems to 
proceed more merrily than it began.” 

“ It ends here,” answered I. “ And I take shame to 
myself, that my folly has lost me the right of resenting 
your ridicule of a friend.” 

•• Pray allow me,” said the stranger, approaching a step 
nearer, and laying his gloved hand cn my sleeve. “ One 
other favor I must ask of you. You have a young person, 
here at Blithedale, of whom I have heard, — whom, per- 
haps, I have known, — and in whom, at all events, I take a 
peculiar interest. She is one of those delicate, nervous 
young creatures, not uncommon in New England, and 
whom I suppose to have become what we find them by 
he gradual refining away of the physical system 
unong your women. Some philosophers choose to gin 


THE WOOD-PATH. 


115 


rify this habit of body by terming 1 it spiritual ; but, in my 
opinion, it is rather the effect of unwholesome food, bad 
air, lack of out-door exercise, and neglect of bathing, on 
the part of these damsels and their female progenitors, 
all resulting in a kind of hereditary dyspepsia. Zenobia, 
even with .her uncomfortable surplus of vitality, is far 
the better model of womanhood. But — to revert again 
to this young person — she goes among you by the name 
of Priscilla. Could you possibly afford me the means of 
speaking with her ? ” 

“ You have made so many inquiries of me,” I observed, 
4 that I may at least trouble you with one. What is 
your name ? ” 

He offered me a card, with “ Professor Westervelt” 
engraved on it. At the same time, as if to vindicate his 
claim to the professorial dignity, so often assumed on 
very questionable grounds, he put or: a pair of spectacles, 
which so altered the character of his face that I hardly 
knew him again. But I liked the present aspect no 
better than the former one. 

“ I must decline any further connection with your 
affairs,” said I, drawing back. “ I have told you where 
to find Zenobia. As for Priscilla, she has closer friends 
than myself, through whom, if they see fit, yon can gain 
access to her.” 

“In that case,” returned the Professor, ceremoniously 
raising his hat, “ good-morning to you.” 

He took his departure, and was soon out of sight 
among the windings of the wood-path. But after a 
little reflection, I could not help regretting that I had so 
peremptorily broken off the interview, while the stranger 
seemed inclined to continue it. His evident kncwled^ 


i 16 


THE BLITHE DALE ROMANCE. 


of matters affecting my three friends might have led to 
disclosures, or inferences, that would perhaps have been 
serviceable. I was particularly struck with the fact that, 
ever since the appearance of Priscilla, it had been the 
tendency of events to suggest and establish a connection 
between Zenobia and her. She had come,. in the first 
instance, as if with the sole purpose of claiming Zeno- 
bia’s protection. Old Moodie’s visit, it appeared, was 
chiefly to ascertain whether this object had been .accom- 
plished. And here, to-day, was the questionable Pro- 
fessor, linking one with the other in his inquiries, and 
seeking communication with both. 

Meanwhile, my inclination for a ramble having been 
balked, I lingered in the vicinity of the farm, with per- 
haps a vague idea that some new event would grow out 
of Westervelt’s proposed interview with Zenobia. My 
own part in these transactions was singularly subordi- 
nate. It resembled that of the Chorus in a classic play, 
which seems to be set aloof from the possibility of per- 
sonal concernment, and bestows the whole measure of its 
hope or fear, its exultation or sorrow, on the fortunes of 
others, between whom and itself this sympathy is the 
only bond. Destiny, it may be, — the most skilful of 
stage-managers, — seldom chooses to arrange its scenes, 
and carry forward its drama, without securing the pres- 
ence of at least one calm observer. It is his office to 
give applause when due, and sometimes an inevitable 
tear, to detect the final fitness of incident to character 
and distil in his long-brooding thought the whole moral 
Uy of the performance. 

Not to be out of the way, in case there were need of 
me in my vocation, and, at the same time, to ayoid 


THE WOOD-PAIII. 


in 


thrusting myself where neither destiny nor mortals 
might desire my presence, I remained pretty near the 
verge of the woodlands. My position was off the track 
nf Zenobia’s customary walk, yet not so remote but that 
a recognized occasion might speedily have brought m* 
thither. 


SI*. 

COVERDALE’S HERMITAGE. 

Long since, in this part of our circumjacent wood, 1 
had found out for myself a little hermitage. It was a 
kind of leafy cave, high upward into the air, among the 
midmost branches of a white-pine tree. A wild grape- 
vine, of unusual size and luxuriance, had twined and 
twisted itself up into the tree, and, after wreathing the 
entanglem >nt of its tendrils almost around every bough, 
had caughi hold of three or four neighboring trees, and 
married the whole clump with a perfectly inextricable 
knot of polygamy. Once, while sheltering myself from 
a summer shower, the fancy had taken me to clamber up 
into this seemingly impervious mass of foliage. The 
branches yielded me a passage, and closed again beneath, 
as if only a squirrel or a bird had passed. Far aloft, 
around the stem of the central pine, behold a perfect nest 
for Robinson Crusoe or King Charles ! A hollow cham- 
ber of rare seclusion had been formed by the decay of 
some of the pine branches, which the vine had lovingly 
strangled with its embrace, burying them from the light 
of day in an aerial sepulchre of its own leaves. It cost 
me but little ingenuity to enlarge the interior, and open 
.mop-holes through the verdant walls. Had it ever been 
my fortune to spend a honey-moon, I should have thought 
seriously of inviting my bride up thither, <vhe’° oui 


COVERDALE’S HERMITAGE. 


119 


next neighbors would have been two orioles in another 
part of the clump. 

It was an admirable place to make verses, tuning the 
rhythm to the breezy symphony that so often stirred 
among the vine-leaves ; or to meditate an essay for the 
Dial, in which the many tongues of Nature whispered 
mysteries, and seemed to ask only a little stronger puff 
of wind to speak out the solution of its riddle. Being so 
pervious to air-currents, it was just the nook, too, for the 
enjoymeni of a cigar. This hermitage was my one 
exclusive possession while I counted myself a brother of 
the socialists. It symbolized my individuality, and aided 
me in keeping it inviolate. None ever found me out in 
it, except, once, a squirrel. I brought thither no guest, 
because, after Hollingsworth failed me, there was no 
longer the man alive with whom I could think of sharing 
all. So there I used to sit, owl-like, yet not without lib- 
eral and hospitable thoughts. I counted the innumer- 
able clusters of my vine, and fore-reckoned the abundance 
of my vintage. It gladdened me to anticipate the sur- 
prise of the Community, when, like an allegorical figure 
of rich October, I should make my appearance, with 
shoulders bent beneath the burthen of ripe grapes, and 
some of the crushed ones crimsoning my brow as with a 
blood-stain. 

Ascending into this natural turret, I peeped in turn 
out of several of its small windows. The pine-tree, being 
ancient, rose high above the rest of the wood, which was 
of comparatively recent growth. Even where I sat, 
about midway between the root and the topmost bough 
my position was lofty enough to serve as an observatory, 
not for starr)’ investigations, but tor those sublunary 


120 


THE BLTTHEDALE ROMANCE. 


matters in which lay a lore as infinite as that of the 
planets. Through one loop-hole I saw the river lapsing 
calmly onward, while in the meadow, near its brink, a 
few of the brethren were digging peat for our winter’s 
luel. On the interior cart-road of our farm, I discerned 
Hollingsworth, with a yoke of oxen hitched to a drag of 
stones, that were to be piled into a fence, on which we 
employed ourselves at the odd intervals of other labor. 
The harsh tones of his voice, shouting to the sluggish 
steers, made me sensible, even at such a distance, that 
he was ill at ease, and that the balked philanthropist 
had the battle-spirit in his heart. 

“ Haw, Buck ! ” quoth he. “ Come along there, ye 
, izy ones ! What are ye about, now ? Gee ! ” 

“Mankind, in Hollingsworth’s opinion,” thought 1, 
“ is but another yoke of oxen, as stubborn, stupid, and 
sluggish, as our old Brown and Bright. He vituperates 
us aloud, and curses us in his heart, and will begin to 
prick us with the goad-stick, by and by. But are we 
his oxen? And what right has he to be the driver? 
And why, when there is enough else to do, should we 
waste our strength in dragging home the ponderous load 
of his philanthropic absurdities? At my height above 
the earth, the whole matter looks ridiculous ! ” 

Turning towards the farm-house, I saw Priscilla (for, 
though a great way off, the eye of faith assured me that 
:*rt was she) sitting at Zenobia’s window, and making 
little purses, I suppose ; or, perhaps, mending the Com- 
munity’s old linen. A bird flew past my tree ; and, as it 
clove its way onward into the sunny atmosphere, I flung 
*t a message for Priscilla. 

“ Ted htr,” said I “ that her fragile thread of life has 


coverdale’s hermitage 


121 


mext/.cably knotted itself with other and tougher threads, 
find most likely it will be broken. Tell her that Zeno- 
Dia will not be long her friend. Say that Hollings- 
worth’s heart is on fire with his own purpose, but icy 
for ah human affection ; and that, if she has given him 
her love, it is like casting a flower into a sepulchre. 
And say that if any mortal really cares for her, it is 
myself ; and not even I, for her realities, — poor little 
seamstress, as Zenobia rightly called her ! — but for the 
fancy-work with which I have idly decked her out ! ” 

The pleasant scent of the wood, evolved by the hot 
sun, stole up to my nostrils, as if I had been an idol in 
its niche. Many trees mingled their fragrance into a 
thousand-fold odor. Possibly there was a sensual influ- 
ence in the broad light of noon that lay beneath me. It 
may have been the cause, in part, that I suddenly found 
myself possessed by a mood of disbelief in moral beauty 
or heroism, and a conviction of the folly of attempting to 
benefit the world. Our especial scheme of reform, which, 
from my observatory, I could take in with the bodily eye, 
looked so ridiculous that it was impossible not to laugh 
aloud. 

“ But the joke is a little too heavy,” thought I. “ If 
i were wise, I should get out of the scrape with all d ili- 
gence, and then laugh at my companion?* for remaining 
in it.” 

Whi/ . thus musing, I heard, with perfect distinctness, 
somewhere in the wood beneath, the peculiar laugh 
which I have described as one of the disagieeable char- 
acteristics of Professor Westervelt. _ It brought my 
thoughts back to our recent interview. I recognized as 
chiefly due to this man’s influence the sceptical and 


122 


THE BLITHEDALE ROMANCE 


sneering view which, just now, had filled my mental 
vision, in regard to all life’s better purposes. And it 
was through his eyes, more than my own, that I was 
looking at Hollingsworth, with his glorious, if impracti- 
cable dream, and at the noble earthliness of Zenobia’s 
character, and even at Priscilla, whose impalpable 
grace lay so singularly between disease and beauty. 
The essential charm of each had vanished. There are 
some spheres the contact with which inevitably degrades 
the high, debases the pure, deforms the beautiful. It 
must be a mind of uncommon strength, and little impres- 
sibility, that can permit itself the habit of such inter- 
course, and not be permanently deteriorated; and yet 
ihe Professor’s tone represented that of worldly society 
at large, where a cold scepticism smothers what it can 
of our spiritual aspirations, and makes the rest ridicu- 
lous. I detested this kind of man ; and all the more 
because a part of my own nature showed itself respons- 
ive to him. 

Voices were now approaching through the region of 
the wood which lay in the vicinity of my tree. Soon I 
caught glimpses of two figures — a woman and a man — 
Zenobia and the stranger — earnestly talking together 
as they advanced. 

Zenobia had a rich, though varying color. It was, 
most of the while, a flame, and anon a sudden paleness. 
Her eyes glowed, so that their light sometimes flashed 
upward to me, as when the sun throws a dazzle from 
some bright object on the ground. Her gestures were 
free, and strikingly impressive. The whole woman was 
alive with a passionate intensity, which I now percsived 
to be the phase in which her beauty culminated. Any 


coverdale’s hermitage. 


in 

passion would nave become her well ; and passionate 
love, perhaps, the best of all. This was not love, but 
anger, largely intermixed with scorn. Yet the idea 
strangely forced itself upon me, that there was a sort of 
familiarity between these two companions, necessarily 
the result of an intimate love, — on Zenobia’s part, at 
least, — in days gone by, but which had prolonged itself 
into as intimate a hatred, for all futurity. As they 
passed among the trees, reckless as her movement was, 
she took good heed that even the hem of her garment 
should not brush against the stranger’s person. I won- 
dered whether there had always been a chasm, guarded 
so religiously, betwixt these two. 

As for Westervelt, he was not a whit more warmed 
by Zenobia’s passion than a salamander by the heat of 
its native* furnace. He would have been absolutely 
statuesque, save for a look of slight perplexity, tinctured 
stiongly with derision. It was a crisis in which his intel- 
lectual perceptions could not altogether help him out. 
He failed to comprehend, and cared but little for com- 
prehending, why Zenobia should put herself into such a 
fume ; but satisfied his mind that it was all folly, and 
only another shape of a woman’s manifold absurdity, 
which men can never understand. How many a 
woman’s evil fate has yoked her with a man like this ! 
Nature thrusts some of us into the world miserably 
incomplete on the emotional side, with hardly any sen- 
sibilities except what pertain to us as animals. No pas- 
sion, save of the senses; no holy tenderness, nor the 
delicacy that results from this. Externally they bear a 
close resemblance to other men, and have perhaps all 
nave the finest grace ; but when a won\en wrecks her* 


121 


THE BLITHE DALE ROMANCE 


self on such a being, she ultimately finds that the rea* 
womanhood within her has no corresponding part in 
him. Her deepest voice lacks a response ; the deeper 
her cry, the more dead his silence. The fault may be 
none of his ; he cannot give her what never lived within 
his soul. But the wretchedness on her side, and the 
moral deterioration attendant on a false and shallow 
life, without strength enough to keep itself sweet, are 
among the most pitiable wrongs that mortals suffer. 

Now, as I looked down from my upper region at this 
man and woman, — outwardly so fair a sight, and wan 
dering like two lovers in the wood, — I imagined that 
Zenobia, at an earlier period of youth, might have fallen 
into the misfortune above indicated. And when her 
passionate womanhood, as was inevitable, had discov- 
ered its mistake, there had ensued the character of 
eccentricity and defiance which distinguished the more 
public portion of her life. 

Seeing how aptly matters had chanced thus far, I 
began to think it the design of late to let me into all 
Zenobia’s secrets, and that therefore the couple would 
sit down beneath my tree, and carry on a conversation 
which would leave me nothing to inquire. No doubt, 
however, had it so happened, I should have deemed 
myself honorably bound to warn them of a listener’s 
presence, by flinging down a handful of unripe grapes, or 
by sending an unearthly groan out i>f my hiding-place, 
as if this were one of the trees of Dante’s ghostly forest. 
But real life never arranges itself exactly like a romance. 
In the first place, they did not sit down at all. Secondly 
even while they passed beneath the tree, Zenobia’s utter- 
ance was so hasty and broken, and Westervelt’s so cool 


COVER DALE’S HERMITAGE. 


125 


And low, that I hardly could make out an intelligible 
sentence, c n either side. What I seem to remember, 1 
yof suspect, may have been patched together by my 
fancy, in brooding over the matter, afterwards. 

“ Why not fling the girl off,” said Westervelt, “ and 
let her go ?” 

“ She clung to me from the first,” replied Zenobia, 
“ I neither know nor care what it is in me that so 
attaches her. But she loves me, and I will not fail 
her.’* 

“ She will plague you, then,” said he, “ in more ways 
than one.” 

“ The poor child ! ” exclaimed Zenobia. “ She can 
do me neither good nor harm. How should she ?” 

I know not what reply Westervelt whispered; nor did 
Zenobia’s subsequent exclamation give me any clue, 
except that it evidently inspired her with horror and 
disgust. 

“ With what kind of a being am I linked ?” cried she. 
t; If my Creator cares aught for my soul, let him release 
me from this miserable bond ! ” 

“ I did not think it weighed so heavily,” said her 
companion. 

“ Nevertheless,” answered Zenobia, “ it will stranglo 
me, at last ! ” 

And then I heard her utter a helpless sort of moan ; 
a sound which, struggling out of the heart of a person 
of her pride and strength, affected me more than if she 
had made the wood dolorousl p vocal with a thousand 
shrieks and wails. 

Other mysterious words, besides what are above 
written, they spoke together; but I understood no more 


126 THE BLITHFEALE ROMANCE. 

and even question whether I fairly understood so NiUch 
as this. By long brooding over our recollections, we 
subtilize them into something akin to imaginary stuff, 
and hardly capable of being distinguished from it. In a 
few moments, they were completely beyond ear-shot. A 
breeze stirred after them, and awoke the leafy tongue3 
of the surrounding trees, which forthwith began to 
babble, as if innumerable gossips had all at once got 
wind of Zenobia’s secret. But, as the breeze grew 
stronger, its voice among the branches was as if it said 
“ Hush ! Hush ! ” and I resolved that to no mortal 
would I disclose what I had heard. And, though there 
might be room for casuistry, sveh, I conceive, is the 
most equitable rule in all similar conjunctures 


XIII. 

ZENCBIA’S LEGEND. 


The illustrious Society of Blithedale, though it toiled 
in downright earnest for the good of mankind, yet not 
unfrequently illuminated its laborious life with an after- 
noon or evening of pastime. Picnics under the trees 
were considerably in vogue ; and, within doors, frag- 
mentary bits of theatrical performance, such as single 
acts of tragedy or comedy, or dramatic proverbs and 
charades. Zenobia, besides, was fond of giving us read- 
ings from Shakspeare, and often with a depth of tragic 
power, or breadth of comic effect, that made one feel it 
an intolerable wrong to the world that she did not at 
once go upon the stage. Tableaux vivants were another 
of our occasional modes of amusement, in which scarlet 
shawls, old silken robes, ruffs, velvets, furs, and all kinds 
of miscellaneous trumpery, converted our familiar com- 
panions into the people of a pictorial world. We had 
been thus engaged on the evening after the incident 
narrated in the last chapter. Several splendid works 
0 f ar t — either arranged after engravings from the old 
masters, or original illustrations of scenes in history or 
romance — had been presented, and we were earnestly 
entreating Zenobia for more. 

She stood, with a meditative air, holding a large 
piece of gauze, or some such ethereal stuff, as if consid- 
ering what picture should n^xt occupy the frame ; while 


128 


THE BMTHEDALE ROMANCE. 


at her feet lay a heap of many-colored garments, which 
her quick fancy and magic skill could so easily convert 
into gorgeous draperies for heroes and princesses. 

“ I am getting weary of this,” said she, after a 
moment’s thought. “Our own features, and our own 
figures and airs, show a little too intrusively through all 
the characters we assume. We have so much famil- 
iarity with one another’s realities, that we cannot remove 
ourselves, at pleasure, into an imaginary sphere. Let 
us have no more pictures to-night ; but, to make you 
what poor amends I can, how would you like to have 
me trump up a wild, spectral legend, ,on the spur of the 
moment ? ” 

Zenobia had the gift of telling a fanciful little story, 
off-hand, in a way that made it greatly more effective 
than it was usually found to be when she afterwards 
elaborated the same production with her pen. Her pro- 
posal, therefore, was greeted with acclamation. 

“ 0, a story, a story, by all means !-” cried the young 
girls. “ No matter how marvellous ; we will believe it, 
every word. And let it be a ghost-story, if you please.’ 

“ No, not exactly a ghost-story,” answered Zenobia ; 
‘ but something so nearly like it that you shall hardly 
tell the difference. And, Priscilla, stand you before me, 
where I may look at you, and get my inspiration out of 
your eyes. They are very deep and dreamy to-night.” 

I know not whether the following version of her stoiy 
will retain any portion of its pristine character ; but, as 
Zenobia told it wildly and rapidly, hesitating at no 
extravagance, ana dashing at absurdities which I am 
too timorous to repeat, — giving it the varied empnasis 
of her inimitable voice, an’ the pictorial i Lustration of 


3E7 JBIA S LEGEND. 


129 


hei mobile face, wnile through it all we caught the 
freshest aroma of the thoughts, as they came bubbling 
out of her mind, — thus narrated, and thus heard, the 
egend seemed quite a remarkable affair. I scarcely 
knew, at the time, whether she intended us to laugh or 
oe more seriously impressed. From beginning to end, 
it was undeniable nonsense, but not necessarily the 
worse for that. 


THE SILVERY VEIL. 

You have heard, my dear friends, of the Vedeu 
Lady, who grew suddenly so very famous, a few months 
ago. And have you never thought how remarkable it 
was that this marvellous creature should vanish, all at 
once, while her renown was on the increase, before the 
public had grown weary of her, and when the enigma 
of her character, instead of being solved, presented itself 
more mystically at every exhibition ? Her last appear- 
ance, as you know, was before a crowded audience. 
The next evening, — although the bills had announced 
her, at the comer of every street, in red letters of a 
gigantic size, — there was no Veiled Lady to be seen ! 
Now, listen to my simple little tale, and you shall hear 
the very latest incident in the known life — (if life it may 
be called, which seemed to have no more reality than 
the candle-light image of one’s self which peeps at us 
outside of a dark window-pane) — the life of this shadowy 
phenomenon. 

A party of young gentlemen, you are to understand, 
were enjoying themselves, one afternoon, — as young 


1JU 


THE BLITHEDALE ROMANCE. 


gentlemen are sometimes fond cf doing, — ovei a bottle 
or two of champagne ; and, among other ladies less mys- 
teriois, the subject of the Veiled Lady, as was very 
natural, happened to come up before them for discussion. 
She rose, as it were, with the sparkling effervescence of 
their wine, and appeared in a more airy and fantastic 
light on account of the medium through which they 
saw her. They repeated to one another, between jest 
and earnest, all the wild stories that were in vogue ; nor, 
I presume, did they hesitate to add any small circum- 
stance that the inventive whim of the moment might 
suggest, to heighten the marvellousness of their theme. 

“■But what an audacious report was that,” observed 
one, “which pretended to assert the identity of this 
strange creature with a young lady,” — and here he 
mentioned her name, — “ the daughter of one of our 
most distinguished families ! ” 

“ Ah, there is more in that story than can well be 
accounted for,” remarked another. “ I have it, on good 
authority, that the young lady in question is invariably 
out of sight, and not to be traced, even by her own 
family, at the hours when the Veiled Lady is before the 
public ; nor can any satisfactory explanation be given of 
tier disappearance. And just look at the thing : Her 
brother is a young fellow of spirit. He cannot but be 
aware of these rumors in reference to his sister. Why, 
then, does he not come forward to defend her character, 
unless he is conscious that an investigation would only 
make the matter worse ? ” 

It is essential to the purposes of my legend to diitin- 
guish one of these young gentlemen from his com 
paniens; so, for the sake of a soft and pretty name 


ENOBIA £5 LEGENE 


131 


auch as we 01 the literary sisterhood invariably bestow 
upon our heroes). I deem it fit to call him Theodore. 

“ Pshaw ! ” exclaimed Theodore “ her brother is no 
such fool ! Nobody, unless his brim be as full of bub- 
bles as this wine, can seriously think of crediting that 
ridiculous rumor. Why, if my senses did not play me 
false (which never was the case yet), I affirm that I saw 
that very lady, last evening, at the exhibition, while this 
veiled phenomenon was playing off her juggling tricks l 
What can you say to that ? ” 

“ O, it was a spectral illusion that you saw,” replied 
fas friends, with a general laugh. “ The Veiled Lady is 
quite up to such a thing.” 

However, as the above-mentioned fable could not hold 
its ground against Theodore’s downright refutation, 
they went on to speak of other stories which the wild 
babble of the town had set afloat. Some upheld that 
the veil covered the most beautiful countenance in the 
world ; others, — and certainly with more reason, con- 
sidering the sex of the Veiled Lady, — that the face was 
the most hideous and horrible, and that this was her 
sole motive for hiding it. It was the face of a corpse ; it 
was the head of a skeleton ; it was a monstrous visage, 
with snaky locks, like Medusa’s, and one great red eye 
in the centre of the forehead. Again, it was affirmed 
that there was no single and unchangeable set of 
features beneath the veil ; but that whosoever should be 
bold enough to lift it would behold the features of that 
Derson, in all the world, who was destined to be his 
fate ; perhaps he would be greeted by the tender smile 
of the woman whom he Lved, or, quite as probably the 
deadly scowl of his bitterest enemy would thrnv a blight 


1 32 


THE BLITHE DALE ROMANCE 


over his life. They quoted, moreover, thu startling 
explanation of the whole affair : that the magician who 
exhibited the Veiled Lady — and who, by the by, was the 
handsomest man in the whole world — had bartered his 
own soul for seven years’ possession of a familiar fiend, 
and that the last year of the contract was wearing 
towards its close. 

If it were worth our while, I could keep you till an 
hour beyond midnight listening to a thousand such 
absurdities as these. But finally our friend Theodore, 
who prided himself upon his common sense, found the 
matter getting quite beyond his patience. 

“ I offer any wager you like,” cried he, setting down 
his glass so forcibly as to break the stem of it, “ that this 
very evening I find out the mystery of the Veiled Lady ! ” 

Young men, I am told, boggle at nothing, over their 
wine ; so, after a little more talk, a wager of consider- 
able amount was actually laid, the money staked, and 
Theodore left to choose his own method of settling the 
dispute. 

How he managed it I know not, nor is it of any 
great importance to this veracious legend. The most 
natural way, to be sure, was by bribing the door-keeper, 
— or possibly he preferred clambering in at the win- 
dow. But, at any rate, that very evening, while the 
exhibition was going forward in the hall, Theodore con- 
trived to gain admittance into the private withdrawing- 
room whither the Veiled Lady was accustomed to retire 
at the close of her performances. There he waited 
listening, I suppose, to the stifled hum of the great audi 
ence ; and no doubt he could distinguish the deep tones 
of the magician, causing the wonders that he wrought 


zenobia’s legend. 


133 


to appear lkas dark and intricate, by his mystic pretence 
**f an explanation. Perhaps, too, in the intervals of the 
wild, breezy music which accompanied the exhibition, 
he might hear the low voice of the Veiled Lady, convey- 
ing her sibylline responses. Firm as Theodore’s nerves 
might be, and much as he prided himself on his sturdy 
perception of realities, I should not be surprised if his 
heart throbbed at a little more than its ordinary rate. 

Theodore concealed himself behind a screen. In due 
time, the performance was brought to a close, and, 
whether the door was softly opened, or whether her 
bodiless presence came through the wall, is more than I 
can say, but, all at once, without the young man’s 
lmowing how it happened, a veiled figure stood in the 
centre of the room. It was one thing to be in presence 
cf this mystery in the hall of exhibition, where the 
warm, dense life of hundreds of other mortals kept up 
the beholder’s courage, and distributed her influence 
among so many ; it was another thing to be quite alone 
with her, and that, too, with a hostile, or, at least, an 
unauthorized and unjustifiable purpose. I rather imagine 
that Theodore now began to be sensible of something 
more serious in his enterprise than he had been quite 
aware of, while he sat with his boon-companions over 
their sparkling wine. 

Very strange, it must be confessed, was the move /lent 
with which the figure floated to and fro over the carpet, 
with the silvery veil covering her from head to foot ; so 
impalpable, so ethereal, so without substance, as the 
texture seemed, yet hiding her every outline in an im- 
penetrability like that of midnight. Surely, she did not 
walk ! She floated, and flitted, and hovered about the 


134 


THE BLITHEDALE ROMANCE. 


~oom ; — no sound of a footstep, no perceptible motion 
of a limb ; — it was as if a wandering breeze wafted 
her before it, at its own wild and gentle pleasure. But 
by and by, a purpose began to be discernible, throughout 
the seeming vagueness of her unrest. She was in 
quest of something. Could it be that a subtile pre&en 
timent had informed her of the young man’s presence ? 
And if so, did the Veiled Lady seek or did she shun 
him? The doubt in Theodore’s mind was speedily 
resolved; for, after a moment or two of these erratic 
flutterings, she advanced more decidedly, and stood 
motionless before the screen. 

“ Thou art here ! ” said a soft, low voice. “ Come 
forth, Theodore ! ” 

Thus summoned by his name, Theodore, as a man of 
courage, had no choice. He emerged from his conceal- 
ment, and presented himself before the Veiled Lady, 
with the wine-flush, it may be, quite gone out of his 
cheeks. 

“ What wouldst thou with me?” she inquired, with 
the same gentle composure that was in her former 
utterance. 

“Mysterious creature,” replied Theodore, “I would 
know who and what you are ! ” 

“ My lips are forbidden to betray the secret,” said the 
Veiled Lady. 

“ At whatever risk, I must discover it,” rejoined 
Theodore. 

“ Then,” said the Mystery, “ there is no way, save to 
Jft my veil.” 

And Theodore, partly recovering his audacity, stept 
forward on the instant, to do as the Veiled Lady haa 


ZfiNOBIA’S LEGEND. 


135 


suggested But she floated backward to the opposite 
side of the room, as if the young man’s breath had pos- 
sessed power enough to waft her away. 

“ Pause, one little instant,” said the soft, low voice, 
“ and learn the conditions of what thou art so bold to 
undertake ! Thou canst go hence, and think of me no 
more ; or, at thy option, thou canst lift this mysterious 
veil, beneath which I am a sad and lonely prisoner, in a 
bondage which is worse to me than death. But, before 
raising it, I entreat thee, in all maiden modesty, to bend 
forward and impress a kiss where my breath stirs 
the veil ; and my virgin lips shall come forward to meet 
thy lips ; and from that instant, Theodore, thou shalt be 
mine, and I thine, with never more a veil between us. 
And all the felicity of earth and of the future world shall 
be thine and mine together. So much may a maiden 
say behind the veil. If thou shrinkest from this, there 
is yet another way.” 

“ And what is that ? ” asked Theodore. 

“ Dost thou hesitate,” said the Veiled Lady, “ to 
pledge thyself to me, by meeting these lips of mine, 
while the veil ) 't hides my face ? Has not thy heart 
recognized me 2 Dost thou come hither, not in holy 
faith, nor with a pure and generous purpose, but in 
scornful scepticism and idle curiosity? Still, thou 
mayest lift the veil ! But, from that instant, Theodore. 
I am doomed to be thy evil fate; nor wilt thou ever 
taste another breath of happiness ! ” 

There was a shade of inexpressible sadness in the 
utterance of these last words. But Theodore, whose 
natural tendency was towards scepticism, felt himself 
almost injured and insulted bj the Veiled Lidy’s pro* 


136 


THE BLITHEDALE R( MANCE. 


posal that he should pledge himself, for life and eternity, 
to so questionable a creature as herself ; or even that she 
should suggest an inconsequential kiss, taking into /lew 
the probability that her face was non. =5 of the most 
bewitching. A delightful idea, truly, that he should 
sarnte the lips of a dead girl, or the jaws of a skeleton, 
or the grinning cavity of a monster’s mouth ! Even 
should she prove a comely maiden enough in other re- 
spects, the odds were ten to one that her teeth were defect- 
ive ; a terrible drawback on the delectableness of a kiss. 

“ Excuse me, fair lady,” said Theodore, — and I 
think he nearly burst into a laugh, — “ if I prefr r to lift 
the veil first; and for this affair of the kiss, ve may 
decide upon it afterwards.” 

“ Thou hast made thy choice,” said the sv eet, sad 
voice behind the veil ; and there seemed a tender but 
unresentful sense of wrong done to womanhood by the 
young man’s contemptuous interpretation of h«' offer. 
“ I must not counsel thee to pause, although thy f- is 
still in thine own hand ! ” 

Grasping at the veil, he flung it upward, and caugV i 
glimpse of a pale, lovely face beneath ; just one momorv 1 - 
ary glimpse, and then the apparition vanished, and thr 
silvery veil fluttered slowly down and lay upon the 
floor. Theodore was alone. Our legend leaves him 
there. His retribution was, to pine for ever and ever 
for another sight, of that dill., mournful face, — which 
might have been his life-long household fireside joy, — 
to desire, and waste life in a feverish quest, and never 
meet it more. 

But what, in good sooth, had become td th* Veiled 
T «idy ? Ha 1 all her existence been comprehended with 


ZEN0B1AS LEGEND. 


137 


in that mysterious veil, and was she now annihilated ? 
Or was she a spirit, with a heavenly essence., but which 
might have been tamed down to human bliss, had Theo- 
dore been brave and true enough to claim her ? Hearken, 
my sweet friends, — and hearken, dear Priscilla, — and 
you shall learn the little more that Zenobia can tell you. 

Just at the moment, so far as can be ascertained, 
when the Veiled Lady vanished, a maiden, pale and 
shadowy, rose up amid a knot of visionary people, who 
were seeking for the better life. She was sc gentle and 
so sad, — a nameless melancholy gave her such hold 
upon their sympathies, — that they never thought of 
questioning whence she came. She might have here- 
tofore existed, or her thin substance might have been 
moulded out of air at the very instant when they first 
beheld her. It was all one to them ; they took her to 
their hearts. Among them was a lady, to whom, more 
than to all the rest, this pale, mysterious girl attached 
herself. 

But one morning the lady was wandering in the 
woods, and there met her a figure in an oriental robe, 
with a dark beard, and holding in his hand a silvery 
veil. He motioned her to stay. Being a woman of 
some nerve, she did not shriek, nor run away, nor faint, 
as many ladies would have been apt to do, but stood 
quietly, and bade him speak. The truth was, she had 
seen his face before, but had never feared it, d though 
she knew him to be a terrible magician. 

“ Lady,” said he, with a warning gesture, “ you are in 
peril ! ” 

“ Peril ! ” she exclaimed. “ Ar d of what nature ? ” 

“ There 1 3 a certain maiden,” replied the magiciun, 


138 


THE BLITHEDALE ROMANCE. 


“ who lias come out of the realm of mystery, and made 
herself your most intimate companion. Now, the fates 
have so ordained it^that, whether by her own will or no 
this stranger is your deadliest enemy. In love, in 
worldly fortune, in all your pursuit of happiness, sho is 
doomed to fling a blight over your prospects. There 
is but one possibility of thwarting her disastrous in- 
fluence.” 

“ Then tell me that one method,” said the lady. 

“ Take this veil,” he answered, holding forth the sil- 
very texture. “ It is a spell ; it is a powerful enchant- 
ment, which I wrought for her sake, and beneath which 
she was once my prisoner. Throw it, at unawares, over 
the head of this secret foe, stamp your foot, and cry, 
* Arise, Magician, here is the Veiled Lady ! * and imme- 
diately I will rise up through the earth, and seize her ; 
and from that moment you are safe ! ” 

So the lady took the silvery veil, which was like 
woven air, or like some substance airier than nothing, 
and that would float upward and be lost among the 
clouds, were she once to let it go. Eetuming home- 
ward, she found the shadowy girl, amid the knot of 
visionary transcendentalists, who were still seeking for 
the better life. She was joyous now, and had a rose- 
bloom in her cheeks, and was one of the prettiest crea- 
tures, and seemed one of the happiest, that the world 
could show. But the lady stole noiselessly behind her 
and threw the veil over her head. As the slight, ethe- 
real texture sank inevitably down over her figure, the 
poor gir ' strove to raise it, and met her dear friend’s 
eyes with one glance of mortal terror, and deep, deep 
reproach li could not change her purpose. 


zenobia’s legend. 


139 

“ Arisj, Magician ! ” she exclaimed, stamping hea foot 
upon the earth. “ Here is the Veiled Lady ! ” 

At the word, uprose the bearded man in the oriental 
robes, — the beautiful, the dirk magician, who had 
bartered away his soul ! He threw his arms around 
the Veiled Lady, and she was his bond-slave forever- 
more ! 


Zenobia, all this while, had been holding the piece ot 
gauze, and so managed it as greatly to increase the 
dramatic effect of the legend at those points where the 
magic veil was to be described. Arriving at the catas- 
trophe, and uttering the fatal words, she flung the gauze 
over Priscilla’s head ; and for an instant her auditors 
held their breath, half expecting, I verily believe, that 
the magician would start up through the floor, and cany 
off our poor little friend, before our eyes. 

As for Priscilla, she stood droopingly in the midst of 
us, making no attempt to remove the veil. 

“ How do you find yourself, my love ? ” said Zenobia, 
lifting a comer of the gauze, and peeping beneath it, 
with a mischievous smile. “ Ah, the dear little soul ! 
Why, she is really going to faint ! Mr. Coverdale, Mr. 
Coverdale, pray bring a glass of water ! ” 

Her nerves being none of the strongest, Priscilla 
hardly recovered her eouanimity during the rest of the 
evening. This, to be <sure, was a great pi tv ; but, 
nevertheless, we thought it a very bright idea of Zeno- 
bia’s to bring her legend to so effective a conclusion. 


XIV. 

ELIOT’S PULPIT. 

Our Sundays, at Blithedale, were not ordinarily kept 
with such rigid observance as might have befitted the 
descendants of the Pilgrims, whose high enterprise, as we 
sometimes flattered ourselves, we had taken up, and were 
carrying it onward and aloft, to a point which they never 
dreamed of attaining. 

On that hallowed day, it is true, we rested from our 
labors. Our oxen, relieved from their week-day yoke, 
roamed at large through the pasture ; each yoke-fellow, 
however, keeping close beside his mate, and continuing 
to acknowledge, from the force of habit and sluggish 
sympathy, the union which the taskmaster had imposed 
for his own hard ends. As for us human yoke-fellows, 
chosen companions of toil, whose hoes had clinked 
together throughout the week, we wandered off, in vari- 
ous directions, to enjoy our interval of repose. Some, I 
believe, went devoutly to the village church. Others, it 
may be, ascended a city or a country pulpit, wearing the 
clerical robe with so much dignity that you would 
scarcely have suspected the yeoman’s frock to have been 
flung off only since milking-time. Others took long 
rambles among the rustic lanes and by-paths, pausing to 
look at black old farm-houses, with their sloping roofs ; 
and at the modem cottage, so like a plaything that it 
seemed as if ml joy or sorrow could have no scope 


E^iOT’S PULPIT. 


141 


within and at the more pretending villa, with its range 
of wooden columns, supporting the needless insolence of 
a great, portico. Some betook themselves into the wide, 
dusky barn, and lay there for hours together on the 
odorous hay; while the sunstreaks and the shadows 
strove together, — these to make the bam solemn, those 
to make it cheerful, — ar 1 both were conquerors; and 
the swallows twittered a cheery anthem, flashing into 
sight, or vanishing, as they darted to and fro among the 
golden mles of sunshine. And others went a little way 
into the woods, and threw themselves on mother earth, 
pillowing their heads on a heap of moss, the green decay 
of an old log; and, dropping asleep, the humble-bees 
and mosquitoes sung and buzzed about their ears, caus- 
ing the slumberers to twitch and start, without awak- 
ening. 

With Hollingsworth, Zenobia, Priscilla and myself, it 
grew to be a custom to spend the Sabbath afternoon at a 
certain rock. It was known to us under the name of 
El lot’s pulpit, from a tradition that the venerable Apostle 
Eliot had preached there, two centuries gone by, to an 
Indian auditory. The old pine forest, through which the 
apostle’s voice was wont to sound, had fallen, an imme- 
morial time ago. But the soil, being of the rudest and 
most broken surface, had apparently never been brought 
under tillage; other growths, maple, and beech, and 
birch, had succeeded to the primeval trees ; so that it 
\vas still as wild a tract of woodland as the great-great- 
great-great-grandson of one of Eliot’s Indians (had any 
such posterity been in existence) could have desired, 
for the site and shelter of his wigwam. These after 
growths, indeed, lose the stately solemnity of the original 


142 


THE BLITHE DALE ROMANCE. 


forest. If left in due neglect, however, they run into an 
entanglement of softer wildness, among the rustling 
leaves of which the sun can scatter cneerfulness as it 
never could among the dark-browed pines. 

The rock itself rose some twenty or thirty feet, a shat- 
tered granite boulder, or heap of boulders, with an irreg- 
ular outline and many fissures, out of which sprang 
shrubs, bushes, and even trees ; as if the scanty soil 
within those crevices were sweeter to their roots than 
any other earth. At the base of the pulpit, the broken 
boulders inclined towards each other, so as to form a 
shallow cave, within which our little party had some- 
times found protection from a summer shower. On the 
threshold, or just across it, grew a tuft of pale colum- 
bines, in their season, and violets, sad and shadowy 
recluses, such as Priscilla was when we first knew her ; 
children of the sun, who had never seen their father, but 
dwelt among damp mosses, though not akin to them. 
At the summit, the rock was overshadowed by the can- 
opy of a birch-tree, which served as a sounding-board 
for the pulpit. Beneath this shade (with my eyes of 
sense half shut, and those of the imagination widely 
opened) I used to see the holy Apostle of the Indians, 
with the sunlight flickering down upon him through the 
leaves, and glorifying his figure as with the hulf-per • 
ceptible glow of a transfiguration. 

I the more minutely describe the rock, and this little 
Sabbath solitude, because Hollingsworth, at our solic- 
itation, often ascended Eliot’s pulpit, and not exactly 
preached, but talked to us, his few disciples, in a 
strain that rose and fell as naturally as the wind’s 
breath among the leaves of the birch-tree. No othe.* 


ELIOT’S PULPIT. 


L43 


speech of man has ever moved me like some of those 
discourses. It seemed most pitiful — a positive calam- 
ity to the world — that a treasury of golden thoughts 
should thus be scattered, by the liberal handful, down 
among us three, when a thousand hearers might have 
been the richer for them ; and Hollingsworth the richer, 
likewise, by the sympathy of multitudes. After speak- 
ing much or little, as might happen, he would descend 
from his gray pulpit, and generally fling himself at full 
length on the ground, face downward. Meanwhile, we 
talked around him, on such topics as were suggested by 
the discourse. 

Since her interview with Westervelt, Zenobia’s con- . 
linual inequalities of temper had been rather difficult for 
her friends to bear. On the first Sunday after that inci- 
dent, when Hollingsworth had clambered down from 
Eliot’s pulpit, she declaimed with great earnestness and 
passion, nothing short of anger, on the injustice which 
the world did to women, and equally to itself, by not 
allowing them, in freedom and honor, and with the full- 
est welcome, their natural utterance in public. 

“It shall not always be so ! ” cried she. “If 1 live 
another year, I will lift up my own voice in behalf of 
woman’s wider liberty ! ” 

She, perhaps, saw me smile. 

“ What matter of ridicule do you find in this, Miles 
Coverdale ? ” exclaimed Zenobia, with a flash of anger 
in her eyes. “ That smile, permit me to say, makes me 
cuspicious of a low tone of feeling and shallow thought 
It is my belief — yes, and my prophecy, should I cue 
before it happens — that, when my sex shall achieve its 
fights there will be ten eloquent women where there is 


144 


7-iE BLITHE DALE ROMANCE. 


now one eloquent man. Thus far. no woman in the 
world has ever once spoken out her whole heart and 
her whole mind The mistrust and disapproval of the 
vast bulk of society throttles us, as with two gigantic 
hands at our throats ! We mumble a few w jak words, 
and leave a thousand better ones unsaid. You let us 
write a little, it is true, on a limited range of subjects. 
But the pen is not for woman. Her power is too natural 
aryl immediate. It is with the living voice alone that 
she can compel the world to recognize the light of hex 
intellect and the depth of her heart ! ” 

Now, — though I could not well say so to Zenobia, — 
I had not smiled from any unworthy estimate of woman, 
or in denial of the claims which she is beginning to 
put forth. What amused and puzzled me was the fact, 
that women, however intellectually superior, so seldom 
disquiet themselves about the rights or wrongs of their 
sex, unless their own individual affections chance to lie 
in idleness, or to be ill at ease. They are not natural 
reformers, but become such by the pressure of excep- 
tional misfortune. I could measure Zenobia’s inward 
trouble by the animosity with which she now took up 
the general quarrel of woman against man. 

“ I will give you leave, Zenobia,” replied I, “ to fling 
your utmost scorn upon me, if you ever hear me utter a 
sentiment unfavorable to the widest liberty which woman 
has yet dreamed of. I would give her all she asks, and 
add a great deal more, which she will not be the party 
to demand, but which men, if they were generous and 
wise, would grant of their own free motion. For 
instance, I should love dearly, — for the next thcusand 
years, at least, — to have all government devolve into 


ELIOT’S PULP/T. 


145 


tne hands of women. I hate to be ruled by my own 
sex ; it excites my jealousy, and wounds my pride. It 
is the iron sway ol bodily force which abases us, in our 
compelled submission. But how sweet the free, gen- 
erous courtesy, with which I would kneel before a 
woman-ruler ! ” 

“ Yes, if she were young and beautiful,” said Zeno- 
bia, laughing. “But how if she were sixty, and a 
fright ?” 

“ Ah ! it is you that rate womanhood low,” said 1. 
“ But let me go on. I have never found it possible to 
suffer a bearded priest so near my heart and conscience 
as to do me any spiritual good. I blush at the very 
thought ! 0, in the better order of things, Heaven grant 
that the ministry of souls may be left in charge of 
women ! The gates of the Blessed City will be 
thronged with the multitude that enter in, when that 
day comes ! The task belongs to woman. God meant 
it for her. He has endowed her with the religious sen- 
timent in its utmost depth and purity, refined from that 
gross, intellectual alloy with which every masculine 
theologist — save only One, who merely veiled himself 
in mortal and masculine shape, but was, in truth, divine 
— has been prone to mingle it. I have always envied 
the Catholics their faith in that sweet, sacred Virgin 
Mother, who stands between them and the Deity, inter- 
cepting somewhat of his awful splendor, but permitting 
his love to stream upon the worshipper more intelligibly 
to human comprehension through the medium of a 
woman’s tenderness. Have I not said enough, Zeno- 
bia ? ' 

“ 1 cannot think that this is true,” observed Priscilla 

10 


1 16 


THE BLITHEDALE ROMANCE. 


who had been gazing at me with great, disapproving 
eyes. “ And I am sure I do not wish it to be true ! ” 

“ Poor child ! ” exclaimed Zenobia, rather contempt- 
uously. “ She is the type of womanhood, such as man 
has spent centuries in making it. He is never content 
unless he can degrade himself by stooping towards what 
he loves. In denying us our rights, he betrays even 
more blindness to his own interests than profligate dis- 
regard of ours ! ” 

“ Is this true?” asked Priscilla, with simplicity, turn- 
ing to Hollingsworth. “ Is it all true, that Mr. Cover- 
dale and Zenobia have been saying ? ” 

“ No, Priscilla ! ” answered Hollingsworth, with his 
customary bluntness. “ They have neither of them 
spoken one true word yet.” 

“Do you despise woman?” said Zenobia. “Ah, 
Hollingsworth, that would be most ungrateful !” 

“ Despise her ? No ! ” cried Hollingsworth, lifting his 
great shaggy head and shaking it at us, while his eyes 
glowed almost fiercely. “ She is the most admirable 
handiwork of God, in her true place and character. 
Her place is at man’s side. Her office, that of the sym- 
pathizer ; the unreserved, unquestioning believer ; the 
recognition, withheld in every other manner, but given, 
in pity, through woman’s heart, lest man should utterly 
lose faith in himself; the echo of God’s own voice, pro 
nouncing, ‘It is well done!’ All the separate action 
of woman is, and ever has been, and always shall be 
false, foolish, vain, destructive of her own best and 
holiest qualities, void of every good effect, and product 
ive of intolerable mischiefs ! Man is a wretch withou 
woman; but woman is a monster — and, thank Heaven, 


eliot’s pulmt 


147 


an a most impossible and hitherto imaginary monster — 
without man as her acknowledged principal ! As true 
as I had once a mother whom I loved, were there any 
possible prospect of woman’s taking the social stand 
which some of them — poor, miserable, abortive crea* 
tures, who only dream of such things because they have 
missed woman’s peculiar happiness, or because nature 
made them really neither man nor woman ! — if there 
were a chance of their attaining the end which these 
petticoated monstrosities have in view, I would call upon 
my own sex to use its physical force, that unmistakable 
evidence of sovereignty, to scourge them back within 
their proper bounds ! But it will not be needful. The 
heart of true womanhood knows where its own sphere 
is, and never seeks to stray beyond it ! ” 

Never was mortal blessed — if blessing it were — with 
a glance of such entire acquiescence and unquestioning 
faith, happy in its completeness, as our little Priscilla 
unconsciously bestowed on Hollingsworth. She seemed 
to take the sentiment from his lips into her heart, and 
brood over it in perfect content. The very woman 
whom he pictured — the gentle parasite, the soft reflec 
tion of a more powerful existence — sat there at his feet. 

I looked at Zenobia, however, fully expecting her to 
resent — as I felt, by the indignant ebullition of my own 
blood, that she ought — this outrageous affirmation of 
what struck me as the intensity of masculine egotism. 
It centred everything in itself, and deprived woman of 
her very soul, her inexpressible and unfathomable all, to 
make it a mere incident in the great sum of man. 
Hollingsworth had boldly uttered what he, and millions 
of despots like him, really felt. Without intending it, 


148 


THE BLITHEDALE ROMANCE. 


he had disclosed the well-spring of all these troubled 
waters. Now, if ever, it surely behooved Zenobia to be 
the champion of her sex. 

But, to my surprise, and indignation too, she only 
looked humbled. Some tears sparkled in her eyes, but 
they were wholly of giief, not anger. 

“Well, be it so,” was all she said. “I, at least 
have deep cause to think you right. Let man be but 
manly and god-like, and woman is only too ready to 
become to him what you say ! ” 

I smiled — somewhat bitterly, it is true — in contem- 
plation of my own ill-luck. How little did these two 
women care for me, who had freely conceded all their 
claims, and a great deal more, out of the fulness of my 
heart; while Hollingsworth, by some necromancy of his 
horrible injustice, seemed to have brought them both to 
his feet ! 

“ Women almost invariably behave thus,” thought I. 
“ What does the fact mean ? Is it their nature ? Or is 
it, at last, the result of ages of compelled degradation ? 
And, in either case, will it be possible ever to redeem 
them ? 

An intuition now appeared to possess all the party, 
that, for this time, at least, there was no more to be 
said. With one accord, we arose from the ground, and 
made our way through the tangled undergrowth towards 
one of those pleasant wood-paths that wound among the 
over-arching trees. Some of the branches hung so low 
as partly to conceal the figures that went before from 
those who followed. Priscilla had leaped up more 
lightly than the rest of us, and ran along in advance, 
wth as much airy activity of spirit as was typified in 


ELIOT’S PULPIT. 


1*9 


rtu* *fl.otic.i ot a bird, which chanced to be flitting from 
tree to tree, in the same direction as herself. Never did 
she seem so happy as that afternoon. She skipt, and 
could not help it, from very playfulness of heart. 

Zenobia and Hollingsworth went next, in close conti- 
guity, but not with arm in arm. Now, just when they 
had passed the- impending bough of a birch-tree, I 
plainly saw Zenobia take the hand of Hollingsworth in 
both her own, press it to her bosom, and let it fall 
again ! 

The gesture was sudden, and full of passion ; the 
impulse had evidently taken her by surprise; it expressed 
all ! Had Zenobia knelt before him, or flung herself 
upon his breast, and gasped out, “ I love you, Hollings 
worth ! ” I could not have been more certain of what it 
meant. They then walked onward, as before. But, 
methought, as the declining sun threw Zenobia’s magni- 
fied shadow along the path, I beheld it tremulous ; and 
the delicate stem of the flower which she wore in her 
hair was likewise responsive to her agitation. 

Priscilla — through the medium of her eyes, at least 
— could not possibly have been aware of the gesture 
above described. Yet, at that instant, I saw her droop 
The buoyancy, which just before had been so bird-like, 
was utterly departed ; the life seemed to pass out of her, 
and even the substance of her figure to grow thin and 
gray. I almost imagined her a shadow, fading grad- 
ually ‘nto the dimness of the wood. Her pace became 
so slow, that Hollingsworth and Zenobia passed by, and 
I, without hastening my footsteps, overtook her. 

“ Come, Priscilla,” said I, looking her intently in the. 
face, which was very pale and sorrowful, “we must 


so 


TBE BLITHEDALE ROMANCE. 


make haste after our friends. Do you feel suddenlj ill 
A moment ago, you flitted along so lightly that I was 
comparing you to a bird. Now, on the contrary, it is as 
if you had a heavy heart, and very little strength to bear 
it with. Pray take my arm ! ” 

“No,” said Priscilla, “I do not think it would help 
me. It is my heart, as you say, that makes me heavy ; 
and I know not why. Just now, I felt very happy.” 

No doubt it was a kind of sacrilege in me to attempt 
to come within her maidenly mystery; but, as she 
appeared to be tossed aside by her other friends, or care- 
lessly let fall, like a flower which they had done with, I 
could not resist the impulse to take just one peep beneath 
her folded petals. 

“ Zenobia and yourself are dear friends, of late,” I 
remarked. “At first, — that first evening when you 
came to us, — she did not receive you quite so warmly 
as might have been wished.” 

“I remember it,” said Priscilla. “No wonder she 
hesitated to love me, who was then a stranger to her, 
and a girl of no grace or beauty, — she being herself so 
beautiful ! ” 

“ But she loves you now, of course ? ” suggested I. 
“ And at this very instant you feel her to be your dear- 
est friend ? ” 

“ Why do you ask me that question ? ” exclaimed 
Priscilla, as if frightened at the scrutiny into her feel- 
ings which I compelled her to make. “ It somehow puts 
strange thoughts into my mind. But I 3o love Zenobia 
dearly ! If she only loves me half as well, I shall be 
hanpy ! ” 

: How is it possible to doubt that, Priscilla ? ” I re 


ELIOT’S PULPIT 


151 


♦oined. “ But observe how pleasantly aiul happily 
Zenobia and Hollingsworth are walking together. 1 
cal 1 it a delightful spectacle. It truly rejoic.es me that 
Hol'iingsworth has found so fit and affectionate a friend ! 
So many people in the world mistrust him, — so many 
disbelieve and ridicule, while hardly any do him justice, 
or acknowledge him for the wonderful man he is, — that 
it is really a blessed thing for him to have won the syrm 
pathy of such a woman as Zenobia. Any man might 
be proud of that. Any man, even if he be as great as 
Hollingsworth, might love so magnificent a woman. 
How very beautiful Zenobia is ! And Hollingsworth 
knows it, too.” 

There may have been some petty malice in what I 
said. Generosity is a very fine thing, at a proper time, 
and within due limits. But it is an insufferable bore to 
see one man engrossing every thought of all the women, 
and leaving his friend to shiver in outer seclusion, with- 
out even the alternative of solacing himself with what 
the more fortunate individual has rejected. Yes ; it wa3 
out of a foolish bitterness of heart that I had spoken. 

“Go on before,” said Priscilla, abruptly, and v 
true feminine imperiousness, which heretofore I had 
never seen her exercise. “ It pleases me best to loiter 
along by myself. I do not walk so fast as you.” 

With her hand, she made a little gesture of dismissal. 
It provoked me ; yet, on the whole, was the most be- 
witching thing that Priscilla had ever done. I obeyed 
her, and strolled moodily homeward, wondering — as I 
had wondered a thousand times already — how Hol- 
lingsworth meant to dispose of these two hearts, which 
(plainly to my perception, and, as I cou d not but now 


152 


THE BL3THEPALE ROMANCE. 


suppose, to his) he had engrossed into his own hug? 
egotism. 

There was likewise another subject hardly less fruit 
ful of speculation. In what attitude did Zenobia piesen 
herself to Hollingsworth? Was it in that of a free 
woman, with no mortgage on her affections nor claimant 
to her hand, but fully at liberty to surrender both, in 
exchange for the heart and hand which she apparently 
expected to receive ? But was it a vision that I had 
witnessed in the wood? Was Westervelt a goblin? 
Were those words of passion and agony, which Zenobia 
had uttered in my hearing, a mere stage declamation ? 
Were they formed of a material lighter than common 
air ? Or, supposing them to bear sterling weight, was 
it not a perilous and dreadful wrong which she was 
meditating towards herself and Hollingsworth ? 

Arriving nearly at the farm-house, I looked back over 
the long slope of pasture-land, and beheld them standing 
together, in the light of sunset, just on the spot where, 
Recording to the gossip of the Community, they meant 
to bu'ld their cottage. Priscilla, alone and forgotten, 
was lingering in the shadow of the wood. 


XY. 

A CRISIS 

Thus the summer was passing away , — a summer of 
toil, of interest, of something that was not pleasure, but 
which went deep into my heart, and there became a rich 
experience. 1 found myself looking forward to years, if 
not to a lifetime, to be spent on the same system. The 
Community were now beginning to form their pennanent 
plans. One of our purposes was to erect a Phalanstery 
(as I think we called it, after Fourier; but the phrase- 
ology of those days is not very fresh in my remem- 
brance), where the great and general family should have 
its abiding-place. Individual members, too, who made 
it a point of religion to preserve the sanctity of an ex- 
clusive home, were selecting sites for their cottages, by 
the wood-side, or on the breezy swells, or in the sheltered 
nook of some little valley, according as their taste might 
lean towards snugness or the picturesque. Altogether, 
by projecting our minds outward, we had imparted a 
show of novelty to existence, and contemplated it as 
hopefully as if the soil beneath our feet had not been 
fathom-deep with the dust of deluded generations, on 
every one of which, as on ourselves, the world had 
imposed itself as a hitherto unwedded bride. 

Hollingsworth and myself had often discussed these 
prospects. It was easy to perceive, however, that he 
spoke with little or no fervor, but either as questioning 


154 


THE BLITHEDALE ROK/lNCE. 


the fulfilment of our anticipations, or, at any rate, with a 
quiet consciousness that it was no personal concern of 
his. Shortly after the scene at Eliot’s pulpit, while he 
and I were repairing an old stone fence, I amused myself 
with sallying forward into the future time. 

“ When we come to be old men,” I said, “ they will 
call us uncles, or fathers, — Father Hollingsworth and 
Uncle Coverdale, — and we will look back cheerfully to 
these early days, and make a romantic story for the 
young people (and if a little more romantic than truth 
may warrant, it will be no harm) out of our severe trials 
and hardships. In a century or two, we shall, every 
one of us, be mythical personages, or exceedingly pictur- 
esque and poetical ones, at all events. They will have 
a great public hall, in which your portrait, and mine, 
and twenty other faces that are living now, shall be hung 
up ; and as for me, I will be painted in my shirt-sleeves, 
and with the sleeves rolled up, to show my muscular 
development. What stories will be rife among them 
about our mighty strength ! ” continued I, lifting a big 
stone and putting it into its place ; “ though our posterity 
will really be far stronger than ourselves, after several 
generations of a simple, natural, and active life. What 
legends of Zenobia’s beauty, and Priscilla’s slender and 
shadowy grace, and those mysterious qualities which 
make her seem diaphanous with spiritual light ! In due 
course of ages, we must all figure heroically in an epic 
poem ; and we will ourselves — at least, I will — Dend 
unseen over the future poet, and lend him inspiration 
while he writes it.” 

“You seem,” said Hollingsworth, “to be trying how 
much nonsense you can pour out in a breath.” 


A CRISIS. 


I06 

“I wish you would --ee fit to comprehend,” retorted 
I, “ that the profoundest wisdom must be mingled with 
nine-tenths of nonsense, else it is not worth the breath 
that utters it. But I do long for the cottages to be built, 
that the creeping plants may begin to run over them, and 
the moss to gather on the walls, and the trees — which 
we will set out — to cover them with a breadth of 
shadow. This spick-and-span novelty does not quite 
suit my taste. It is time, too, for children to be bom 
among us. The first-born child is still to come. And 
I shall never feel as if this were a real, practical, as well 
as poetical, system of human life, until somebody has 
sanctified it by death.” 

“ A pretty occasion for martyrdom, truly ! ” said Hoi 
iingsworth. 

“ As good as any other,” I replied. “ I wonder, Hoi 
dngsworth, who, of all these strong men, and fair women 
and maidens, is doomed the first to die. W ould it not 
be well, even before we have absolute need of it, to fix 
upon a spot for a cemetery ? Let us choose the rudest, 
roughest, most uncultivable spot, for Death’s garden- 
ground ; and Death shall teach us to beautify it, grave 
by grave. By our sweet, calm way of dying, and the 
airy elegance out of which we will shape our funeral 
rites, and the cheerful allegories which we will model 
into tomb-stones, the final scene shall lose its terrors ; so 
that hereafter it may be happiness to live, and bliss tc 
die None of us must die young. Yet, should Provi- 
dence ordain it so, the event shall not be sorrowful, but 
affect us with a tender, delicious, only half melancholy 
and almost smiling pathos ! ” 

“ That is to say,” muttered Hollingsworth, ' you will 


156 


THE BLITHEDALE ROMANCE. 


die like a heatnm, as you certainly live like one. But,' 
listen to me, Coverdale. Your fantastic anticipations 
make me discern all the more forcibly what a wretched, 
unsubstantial scheme is this, on which we have wasted a 
precious summer of our lives. Do you seriousl) imagine 
that any such realities as you, and many others here, 
have dreamed of, will ever be brought to pass ? ” 

“ Certainly, I do,” said 1. “ Of course, when the 

reaJty comes, it will wear the every-day, commonplace, 
dusty, and rather homely garb, that reality always does 
put on. But, setting aside the ideal charm, I held that 
our highest anticipations have a solid footing on common 
sense.” 

“ You only half believe what you say,” rejoined Hol- 
lingsworth ; “ and as for me, I neither have faith in your 
dream, nor would care the value of this pebble for its 
realization, were that possible. And what more do you 
want of it ? It has given you a theme for poetry. Let 
that content yGU. But now I ask you to be, at last, a 
man of sobriety and earnestness, and aid me in an enter- 
prise which is worth all our strength, and the strength 
of a thousand mightier than we.” 

There can be no need of giving in detail the conver- 
sation that ensued. It is enough to say that Hollings- 
worth once more brought forward his rigid and uncon- 
querable idea ; a scheme for the reformation of the 
wicked by methods moral, intellectual and industrial, by 
the sympathy of pure, humble, and yet exalted minds 
and by opening, to his pupils the possibility of a worthiei 
life than that which had become their fate. It appeared, 
unless he over-estimated his own means, that Hollings- 
worth held it at his choic* (and he did so choose) to 


A CRISIS, 


157 


obtain possession of the very ground on which wre had 
planted our Community, and which had not yet been 
made irrevocably ours, by purchase. It was just the 
foundation that he desired. Our beginnings might read- 
ily be adapted to his great end. The arrangements 
already completed would work quietly into his system. 
So plausible looked his theory, and, more than that, so 
practical, — such an air of reasonableness had he, by 
patient thought, thrown over it, — each segment of it 
was contrived to dove-tail into all the rest with such a 
complicated applicability, and so ready was he with a 
response for every objection, that, really, so far as logic 
and argument went, he had the matter all his own way, 

“ But,” said I, “ whence can you, having no means of 
your own, derive the enormous capital which is essential 
to this experiment ? State-street, I imagine, would not 
draw its purse-strings very liberally in aid of such a 
speculation.” 

“ I have the funds — as much, at least, as is needed for 
a commencement — at command,” he answered. “ They 
can be produced within a month, if necessary.” 

My thoughts reverted to Zenobia. It could only be 
her wealth which Hollingsworth was appropriating so 
lavishly. And on what conditions was it to be had? 
Did she fling it into the scheme with the uncaJculating 
generosity that characterizes a woman when it is l.ei 
impulse to be generous at all ? And did she fling herseJf 
along with it ? But Hollingsworth did not volunteer an 
explanation. 

“And have you no regrets,” I inquired, “in ovei 
throwring this fair system of our new life, which has been 
planned so deeply, and is now beginning to flour so 


158 


THE BLITHEDALE ROMANCE. 


hopefully around us ? How beautiful it is, and, so far as 
we can yet see, how practicable ! The ages have waited 
for us, and here we are, the very first that have essayeu 
to carry on our mortal existence in love and mutual 
help! Holling wvorth, I would be loth’ to take the rui.i 
of this enterprise upon my conscience.” 

“ Then let it rest wholly upon mine ! ” he answered, 
knitting his black brows. “ I see through the system 
It is full of defects, — irremediable and damning ones ’ 
— from first to last, there is nothing else ! I grasp it in 
my hand, ana find no substance whatever. There is not 
human nature in it.” 

“ Why are you so secret in your operations ? ” I 
asked. “ God forbid that I should accuse you of inten- 
tional WTong ; but the besetting sin of a philanthropist, 
it appears to me, is apt to be a moral obliquity. His 
sense of honor ceases to be the sense of other honorable 
men. At some point of his course — I know not exactly 
when or where — he is tempted to palter with the right, 
and can scarcely forbear persuading himself that the 
importance of his public ends renders it allowable to 
throw aside his private conscience. O, my dear friend, 
beware this error ! If you meditate the overthrow of this 
establishment, call together our companions, state your 
design, support it with all your eloquence, but allow them 
*n opportunity of defending themselves.” 

“ It does not suit me,” said Hollingsworth. ‘ Nor is 
it my duty to do so.” 

“ I think it is,” replied I. 

Hollingsworth frowned ; not in passion, but, like fate 
inexorably. 

* I wil not argue the point,” said he. “ What 1 


A CRISIS. 


159 


desire to know of y ju is, — and you can tell me in one 
word, — whether 3 am to look for your cooperation in 
this great scheme of good ? Take it up with me ! Be 
my brother in it ! It offers you (what you have told me, 
over and over again, that you most need) a purpose in 
life, worthy of the extremest self-devotion, — worthy of 
martyrdom, should God so order it! In this view. I 
present it to you. You can greatly benefit mankind. 
Your peculiar faculties, as I shall direct them, are capable 
of being so wrought into this enterprise that not one of 
them need lie idle. Strike hands with me, and from 
this moment you shall never again feel the languor and 
vague wretchedness of an indolent or half-occupied man. 
There may be no more aimless beauty in your life ; but, 
in its stead, there shall be strength, courage, immitigable 
will — everything that a manly and generous nature 
should desire ! We shall succeed ! We shall have done 
our best for this miserable world ; and happiness (which 
never comes but incidentally) will come to us unawares.” 

It seemed his intention to say no more. But, after he 
had quite broken off, his deep eyes filled with tears, and 
he held out both his hands to me. 

“ Coverdale,” he murmured, “ there is not the man in 
this wide -world whom I can love as I could you. Do 
not forsake me ! ” 

As I look back upon this scene, through the coldness 
and dimness of so many years, there is still a sensation 
as if Hollingsworth had caught hold of my heart, and 
were pulling it towards him with an almost irresist- 
ible force. It is a mystery to ire how I withstood it. 
But, in truth, I saw in his scheme of philanthropy 
nothing but what was odious. A loathsomeness that 


160 


THE BLITHEDALE ROMANCE. 


was to 0e forever in my daily work! A great, black 
ugliness of sin, which he proposed to collect out of a 
thousand human hearts, and that we should spend our 
lives in an experiment of transmuting it into virtue ! Had 
I but touched his extended hand, Hollingsworth’s mag- 
netism would perhaps have penetrated me with his own 
conception of all these matters. But I stood aloof. I 
fortified myself with doubts whether his strength of pur- 
pose had not been too gigantic for his integrity, impelling 
him to trample on considerations that should have been 
paramount to every other. 

“ Is Zenobia to take a part in your enterprise ?”I 
asked. 

“ She is,” said Hollingsworth. 

“ She ! — the beautiful ! — the gorgeous ! ” I exclaimed. 
“ And how have you prevailed with such a woman to 
work in this squalid element ? ” 

“ Through no base methods, as you seem to suspect,” 
he answered ; “ but by addressing whatever is best and 
noblest in her.” 

Hollingsworth was looking on the ground. But, 
as he often did so, — generally, indeed, in his habitual 
moods of thought, • — I could not judge whether it was 
from any special unwillingness now to meet my eyes. 
What it was that dictated my next question, I cannot 
precisely say. Nevertheless, it rose so inevitably into 
my mouth, and, as it wc:e, asked itself so involuntarily, 
that there must needs have been an aptness in it. 

“ What is to become of Priscilla ? ” 

Hollingsworth looked at me fiercely, and witb glowing 
eyes He could not have shewn any other kind of 


A CRISIS, 


163 


expression than that, had he meant to stilke me with a 
sword. 

“Why do you bring in the names of these women ?” 
said lie, after a moment of pregnant silence. “ What 
have they to do with the proposal which I make you ? 
I must have your answer ! Will you devote yourself, 
and sacrifice all to this great end, and be my friend of 
friends forever ? ” 

“ In Heaven’s name, Hollingsworth,” cried I, getting 
angry, and glad to be angry, because so only was it pos- 
sible to oppose his tremendous concentrativeness and 
indomitable will, “ cannot you conceive that a man may 
wish well to the world, and struggle for its good, on 
some other plan than precisely that which you have laid 
lown ? And will you cast off a friend for no unworthi- 
ness, but merely because he stands upon his right as an 
individual being, and looks at matters through his own 
optics, instead of yours ? ” 

“ Be with me,” said Hollingsworth, “ or be against 
me ! There is no third choice for you.” 

“ Take this, then, as my decision,” I answered. “ I 
doubt the wisdom of your scheme. Furthermore, 1 
greatly fear that the methods by which you allow your- 
self to pursue it are such as cannot stand the scrutiny 
of an unbiassed conscience.” 

“ And you will not join me ? ” 

“ No !” 

I never said the word — and certainly can nerer have 
it to say hereafter — that cost me a thousandth part so 
hard an effort as did that one syllable. The heart-pang 
was not merely figurative, but an absolute V)rture of the 
breast. I was gazing steadfastly at Hollingsworth It 
11 


1<}2 THE BLITHEDALE ROMANCE 

seemed to me that it struck him, too, like a bullet. A 
ghastly paleness — always so terrific on a swarthy face 
— overspread his features. There was a convulsive 
movemei t of his throat, as if he were forcing down some 
words that struggled and fought for utterance. Whether 
words of anger, or words of grief, I cannot tell ; although, 
many and many a time, I have vainly tormented myself 
with conjecturing which of the two they were. One 
other appeal to my friendship, — such as once, already, 
Hollingsworth had made, — taking me in the revulsion 
that followed a strenuous exercise of opposing will, 
would completely have subdued me. But he left the 
matter there. 

“ Well !” said he. 

And that was all ! I should have been thankful for 
one word more, even had it shot me through the heart, 
as mine did him. But he did not speak it ; and, after 
a few moments, with one accord, we set to work again, 
repairing the stone fence. Hollingsworth, I observed, 
wrought like a Titan; and, for my own part, I lifted 
stones which at this day — or, in a calmer mood, at 
tnat one — I should no more have thought it possible to 
stir than to carry off the gates of Gaza on my back. 


XVI. 

LEAVE-TAKINGS. 


A few days after the tragic passage-at-arms between 
Hollingsworth and me, I appeared at the dinner-table 
actually dressed in a coat, instead of my customary 
blouse ; with a satin cravat, too, a white vest, and sev- 
eral other things that made me seem strange and out- 
landish to myself. As for my companions, this un- 
wonted spectacle caused a great stir upon the wooden 
benches that bordered either side of our homely board. 

“ What ’s in the wind now, Miles ? ” asked one of 
them. “ Are you deserting us ?” 

“ Yes, for a week or two,” said I. “ It strikes me 
that my health demands a little relaxation of labor, and 
a. short visit to the sea-side, during the dog-days.” 

“You look like it!” grumbled Silas Foster, not 
greatly pleased with the idea of losing an efficient 
laborer before the stress of the season was well over. 
“ Now, here ’s a pretty fellow ! His shoulders have 
broadened a matter of six inches, since he came among 
us ; he can do his day’s work, if he likes, with any man 
or ox on the farm ; and yet he talks about going to the 
sea-shore for his health ! Well, well, old woman,” 
added he to his wife, “ let me have a plateful of that 
pork and cabbage ! I begin to feel in a very weakly 
way. When the others have had their turn, you and I 
will take a jaunt to Newport or Saratoga !” 


164 


THE BLITHEDALE ROMANCE, 


“Well, but, Mr. Foster,” said I, “you must allow 
me to take a litile breath.” 

“ Breath !” retorted the old yeoman. “Your lungs 
have the play of a pair of blacksmith’s bellows already. 
What on earth do you want more ? But go along ! I 
understand the business. We shall never see your 
face here again. Here ends the reformation of the 
world, so far as Miles Coverdale has a hand in it ! ” 

“ By no means,” I replied. “ I am resolute to die in 
the last ditch, for the good of the cause.” 

“ Die in a ditch!” muttered gruff Silas, with genuine 
Yankee intolerance of any intermission of toil, except on 
Sunday, the fourth of July, the autumnal cattle-show, 
Thanksgiving, or the annual Fast. “ Die in a ditch ! 
I believe, in my conscience, you would, if there were no 
steadier means than your own labor to keep you out 
of it!” 

The truth was, that an intolerable discontent and 
irksomeness had come over me. Blithedale was no 
longer what it had been. Everything was suddenly 
faded. The sun-burnt and arid aspect of our woods and 
pastures, beneath the August sky, did but imperfectly 
symbolize the lack of dew and moisture that, since yes- 
terday, as it were, had blighted my fields of thought, 
and penetrated to the innermost and shadiest of my 
contemplative recesses. The change will be recognized 
by many, who, after a period of happiness, have endeav- 
ored to go on with the same kind of life, in the same 
scene, in spite of the alteration or withdrawal of some 
principal circumstance. They discover (what heretofore, 
perhaps, they had not known) that it was this which gave 
the bright color and vivid reality to the whole affair 


LEAVE-TAKINGS. 


165 


i stood 01. Jther terms than before, not only with 
Hollingsworth, but with Zenobia and Priscilla. As 
regarded the two latter, it was that dream-like and 
miserable sort of change that denies you the jjrivi- 
lege to complain, because you can assert no positive 
injury, nor lay your finger on anything tangible. It is 
a matter which you do not see, but feel, and which, 
when you try to analyze it, seems to lose its very exist- 
ence, and resolve itself into a sickly humor of your own. 
Your understanding, possibly, may put faith in this 
denial. But your heart will not so easily rest satisfied. 
It incessantly remonstrates, though, most of the time, in 
a bass-note, which you do not separately distinguish ; 
but, now and then, with a sharp cry, importunate to be 
heard, and resolute to claim belief. “ Things are not as 
they were!” it keeps saying r “You shall not impose 
on me ! I will never be quiet ! I will throb painfully ’ 

will be heavy, and desolate, and shiver with cold .. 
For I, your deep heart, know when to be miserable, as 
once I knew when to be happy ! All is changed for 
us! You are beloved no more!” And, were my life 
to be spent over again, I would invariably lend my 
ear to this Cassandra of the inward depths, however 
clamorous the music and the merriment of a more super- 
ficial region. 

My outbreak with Hollingsworth, though never de fi- 
nitely known to our associates, had really an effect upon 
the moral atmosphere of the Community. It was inci- 
dental to the closeness of relationship into which we had 
broight ourselves, that an unfriendly state of feeling 
could not occur be'ween any two members, without the 
whole society beint more or ’ess commoted ind mad *. 


166 


THE BLITHE DALE ROMANCE. 


uncomfortable thereby. This species of nervous sym- 
pathy (though a pretty characteristic enough, sentiment- 
ally considered, and apparently betokening an actual 
bond of love among us) was yet found rather inconven- 
ient in its practical operation ; mortal tempers being so 
infirm and variable as they are. If one of us happened 
to give his neighbor a box on the ear, the tingle wa3 
immediately felt on the same side of everybody’s head. 
Thus, even on the supposition that we were far less 
quarrelsome than the rest of the world, a great deal of 
time was necessarily wasted in rubbing our ears. 

Musing on all these matters, I felt an inexpressible 
longing for at least a temporary novelty. I thought of 
going across the Rocky Mountains, or to Europe, or up 
the Nile ; of offering myself a volunteer on the Explor- 
ing Expedition ; of taking a ramble of years, no matter 
in what direction, and coming back on the other side of 
the world. Then, should the colonists of Blithedale 
have established their enterprise on a permanent basis, I 
might fling aside my pilgrim staff and dusty shoon, and 
rest as peacefully here as elsewhere. Or, in case Hol- 
lingsworth should occupy the ground with his School 
of Reform, as he now purposed, I might plead earthly 
guilt enough, by that time, to give me what I was 
inclined to think the only trustworthy hold on his affec- 
tions. Meanwhile, before deciding on any ultimate 
plan, I determined to remove myself to a little distance, 
and take an exterior view of what we had all been about. 

In truth, it was dizzy work, amid such fermentation 
of opinions as was going qn in the general brain of the 
Community. It was a kind of Bedlam, for the time 
being although out of the very thoughts that were 


LEAVE-TAKINGS. 


167 


widest and mcst destructive might grow a wisdom 
holy, calm and pure, and that should- incarnate itself 
with the substance of a ni ble and happy life. But, as 
matters now were, I felt myself (and, having a decided 
tendency towards the actual, I never liked to feel it) get- 
ting quite out of my reckoning, with regard to the exist- 
ing state of the world. I was beginning to lose the sense 
of what kind of a world it was, among innumerable 
schemes of what it might or ought to be. It was im- 
possible, situated as we were, not to imbibe the idea that 
everything in nature and human existence was fluid, or 
fast becoming so ; that the crust of the earth in many 
places was broken, and its whole surface portentously 
upheaving; that it was a day d crisis, and that we our- 
selves were in the critical vortex. Our great globe 
floated in the atmosphere of infinite space like an un- 
substantial bubble. No sagacious man will long retain 
nis sagacity, if he live exclusively among reformers and 
progressive people, without periodically returning into 
the settled system of things, to correct himself by a new 
observation from that old stand-point. 

It was now time for me, therefore, to go and hold a 
little talk with the conservatives, the writers of the North 
American Review, the merchants, the politicians, the 
Cambridge men, and all those respectable old blockheads 
who still, in this intangibility and mistiness of affairs, 
kept a death-grip on one or two ideas which had not 
come *.nto vogue since yesterday morning. 

The brethren took leave of me with cordial kindness ; 
and as for the sisterhood, I had serious thoughts of kiss- 
ing them all round, but forebore to do so, because, in 
all such gene-al salutations, the penance is fully equal to 


108 


THE BLITHE JALE ROMANCE. 


the pleasure. So I kissed none of them ; and nobody 
to say the truth, .seemed to expect it. 

“ Do you wish me,” I said to Zenobia, “ to announce, 
in town and at the watering-places, your purpose to 
Oliver a course of lectures on the rights of women ? ” 

“Women possess no rights,” said Zenobia, with a 
naif-melancholy smile ; “ or, at all events, only little 
girls and grandmothers would have the force to exercise 
them.” 

She gave me her hand freely and kindly, and looked 
at me, I thought, with a pitying expression in her eyes ; 
nor was there any settled light of joy in them on her 
own behalf, but a troubled and passionate flame, flicker- 
ing and fitful. 

“ I regret, on the whole, that you are leaving us,” she 
said ; “ and all the more, since I feel that this phase of 
our life is finished, and can never be lived over again. 
Do you know, Mr. Coverdale, that I have been several 
times on the point of making you my confidant, for lack 
of a better and wiser one ? But you are too young to 
be my father confessor ; and you would not thank me 
for treating you like one of those good little handmaidens 
who share the bosom secrets of a tragedy-queen.” 

“ I would, at least, be loyal and faithful,” answered I, 
“ an 1 would counsel you with an honest purpose, if not 
wisely.” 

“ Yes,” said Zenobia, “ you would be only too wise 
too honest. Honesty and wisdom are such a delightfm 
pastime, at another person’s expense ! ” 

“Ah, Zenobia,” I exclaimed, “ if you would but let 
me speak 1 ” 

“ By no means,” she replied, “ especially when you 


LEAVE-T4 KINGS. 


169 


have just resumed the whole series of social convention- 
alisms, together with that straight-bodied coat. I would 
as lief Dpen my heart to a lawyer or a clergyman ! No, 
no, Mr. Coverdale ; if I choose a counsellor, in the pres- 
ent aspect of my affairs, it must be either an angel or a 
madman ; and I rather apprehend that the latter would 
be likeliest of the two to speak the fitting word. It 
needs a wild steersman when we voyage through chaos ! 
The anchor is up — farewell ! ” 

Priscilla, as soon as dinner was over, had betaken her- 
self into a comer, and set to work on a little purse. As 
i approached her, she let her eyes rest on me with u 
calm, serious look ; for, with all her delicacy of nerves, 
there was a singular self-possession in Priscilla, and her 
sensibilities seemed to lie sheltered from ordinary com- 
motion, like the water in a deep well. 

“ Will you give me that purse, Priscilla,” said I, “ as 
a parting keepsake ? ” 

“Yes,” she answered, “if you will wait till it is 
finished.” 

“ I must not wait, even for that,” I replied. “ Shall I 
find you here, on my return ? ” 

“ I never wish to go away,” said she. 

“ I have sometimes thought,” observed I, smiling, 
“ that you, Priscilla, are a little prophetess , or, at least, 
that you have spiritual intimations respecting matters 
which are dark to us grosser people. If that be the 
case, I should like to ask you what is about to happen ; 
for I am toimented with a strong foreboding that, were 
I to return even so soon as to-morrow morning, I should 
find everything changed. Have you any impressions ot 
this nature 9 ” 


170 


THE BLITHEDALE ROMANCE. 


“Ah, no,” said Priscilla, looking at mo apprehen 
sively. “ If any such misfortune is coming, the shadow 
has not reached me yet. Heaven forbid ! I should be 
glad if there might never be any change, but one sum- 
mer fafow another, and all just like this.” 

“ No summer ever came back, and no two summers 
ever were alike,” said I, with a degree of Orphic wisdom 
that astonished myself. “ Times change, and people 
change ; and if our hearts do not change as readily, so 
much the worse for us. Good-by, Priscilla ! ” 

I gave her hand a pressure, which, I think, she neither 
resisted nor returned. Priscilla’s heart was deep, but of 
small compass ; it had room but for a very few dearest 
ones, among whom she never reckoned me. 

On the door-step I met Hollingsworth. I had a mo* 
r.ientary impulse to hold out my hand, or at least to give 
a parting nod, but resisted both. When a real and 
strong affection has come to an end, it is not well to 
mock the sajcred past with any show of those common- 
place civilities that belong to ordinary intercourse. Being 
dead henceforth to him, and he to me, there could be no 
propriety in our chilling one another with the touch of 
two corpse-like hands, or playing at looks of courtesy 
with eyes that were impenetrable beneath the glaze and 
the film. We passed, therefore, as if mutually invis 
ible. 

I can nowise explain what sort of whim, prank or per 
versity, it was, that, after all these leave-takings, induced 
me to go to the pig-sty, and take leave of the swine 1 
There they lay, buried as deeply among the straw as 
they could burrow, four huge black grunters, the very 
symbols of slothful ease and sensual comfort. They 


LEAVE-TAKINGS. 


171 


were asleep, drawing short and heavy breaths, which 
heaved their big sides up and down. Unclosing their 
eyes, however, at my approach, they looked dimly forth 
at the outer world, and simultaneously uttered a gentle 
grunt ; not putting themselves to the trouble of an addi- 
tional breath for that particular purpose, but grunting 
with their ordinary inhalation. They were involved, 
and almost stifled and buried alive, in their own corpo- 
real substance. The very unreadiness and oppression 
wherewith these greasy citizens gained breath enough to 
keep their life-machinery in sluggish movement, ap- 
peared to make them only the more sensible of the pon- 
derous and fat satisfaction of their existence. Peeping 
at me, an instant, out of their small, red, hardly percepti- 
ble eyes , they dropt asleep again ; yet not so far asleep 
but that their unctuous bliss was still present to them, 
betwixt dream and reality. 

“You must come back in season to eat part of a 
spare-rib,” said Silas Foster, giving my hand a mighty 
squeeze. “ I shall have these fat fellows hanging up by 
the heels, heads downward, pretty soon, I tell you ! ” 

“ O, cruel Silas, what a horrible idea ! ” cried I. “ All 
the rest of us, men, women and live-stock, save only 
these four porkers, are bedevilled with one grief or an- 
other ; they alone are happy, — and you mean to cut 
their throats and eat them ! It would more for the 
gener comfort to let them eat us and and soul 

morsi '»$ we shoo d be ! ’ 


XVII. 

THE HOTEL. 

• 

Arriving m town (where my bachelor-rooms, long 
before this time, had received some other occupant), I 
established myself, for a day or two, in a certain respect- 
able hotel. It was situated somewhat aloof from my 
former track in life ; my present mood inclining me to 
avoid most of my old companions, from whom 1 was 
now sundered by other interests, and who would have 
been likely enough to amuse themselves at the expense 
of the amateur working-man. The hotel-keeper put me 
into a back-room of the third story of his spacious estab- 
lishment. The day was lowering, with occasional gusts 
of rain, and an ugly-tempered east wind, which seemed 
to come right off the chill and melancholy sea, hardly 
mitigated by sweeping over the roofs, and amalgamating 
itself with the dusky element of city smoke. All the 
effeminacy of past days had returned upon me at once. 
Summer as it still was, I ordered a coal-fire in the rusty 
grate, and was glad to find myself growing a little too 
warm with an artificial temperature. 

My sensations were those of a traveller, long sojourn- 
ing in remote regions, and at length sitting down again 
amid customs on. i familiar. There was a newness and 
an oldness oddly combining themselves into one impres- 
sion. It made me acutely sensible how strange a piece 
of mosaic-work had lately been wrought into raj life 


THE HOTEL. 


173 

True, if you look at it in one way, it had been only a 
summer in the country. But, considered in a profoundei 
relation, it was part of another age, a different state of 
society, a segment of an existence peculiar in its aims and 
methods, a leaf of some mysterious volume interpolated 
into the current history which time was writing off. At 
one moment, the very circumstances now surrounding 
me — my coal-fire, and the dingy room in the bustling 
hotel — appeared far off and intangible ; the next instant 
Blithedale looked vague, as if it were at a distance 
Doth in time and space, and so shadowy that a, question 
might be raised whether the whole affair had been any- 
thing more than the thoughts of a speculative man. 1 
had never before experienced a mood that so robbed the 
actual world of its solidity. It nevertheless involved a 
charm, on which — a devoted epicure of my own emo- 
tions — I resolved to pause, and enjoy the moral sillabub 
until quite dissolved away. 

Whatever had been my taste for solitude and natural 
scenery, yet the thick, foggy, stifled element of cities, 
the entangled life of many men together, sordid as it 
was, and empty of the beautiful, took quite as strenuous 
3 hold upon my mind. I felt as if there could never be 
enough of it. Each characteristic sound was too sug- 
gestive to be passed over unnoticed. Beneath and 
around me, I heard the stir of the hotel : the loud voices 
of guests, landlord, or bar-keeper ; steps echoing on the 
stair-case ; the ringing of a bell, announcing arrivals 
departures ; the porter lumbering past my door with bag 
gage, which he thumped down upon the floors of neigh 
boring chambers ; the lighter feet of chamber-maids 
scudding along the passages ; — it is ridiculous to thiuV 


174 


VIE BLITHKDALE ROMANCE. 


what an interest, they had for me ! From the street 
came the tumult of the pavements, pervading the whole 
house with a continual uproar, so broad arid deep that 
only an unaccustomed ear would dwell upon it. A 
company of the city soldiery, with a full military band 
marched in front of the hotel, invisible to me, but stir- 
ringly audible both by its foot-tramp and the clangor of 
its instruments. Once or twice all the city bells jangled 
together, announcing a fire, which brought out the 
engine-men and their machines, like an army with its 
artillery rushing to battle. Hour by hour the clocks in 
many steeples responded one to another. In some public 
hall, not a great way off, there seemed to be an exhibi- 
tion of a mechanical diorama ; for, three times during 
the day, occurred a repetition of obstreperous music, 
winding up with the rattle of imitative cannon and 
musketry, and a huge final explosion. Then ensued the 
applause of the spectators, with clap of hands, and 
thump of sticks, and the energetic pounding of thei* 
heels. All this was just as valuable, in its way, as the 
sighing of the breeze among the birch-trees that over- 
shadowed Eliot’s pulpit. 

Yet I felt a hesitation about plunging into this muddy 
fide of human activity and pastime. It suited me better, 
for the present, to linger on the brink, or hover in the 
air above it. So I spent the first day and the greater 
part of the second in the laziest manner possible, in a 
rocking-chair, inhaling the fragrance of a series of cigars 
with my legs and slippered feet horizontally disposed, 
and in my hand a novel purchased of a railroad biblio 
polist. The gradual waste of my cigar accomplished 
itself with an easy and gentle expenditure of breath. My 


THE HOTEL. 


175 


book was of ih? dullest, yet had a sort of sluggish flow, 
like that of a stream in which your boat is as often 
aground as afloat. Had there been a more impetuous 
rush, a more absorbing passion of the narrative, I should 
the sooner have struggled out of its uneasy current, and 
have given myself up to the swell and subsidence of my 
thoughts. But, as it was, the torpid life of the book 
served as an unobtrusive accompaniment to the life 
within me and about me. At intervals, however, when 
its effect grew a little too soporific, — not for my 
patience, but for the possibility of keeping my eyes open, 
— I bestirred myself, started from the rocking-chair, and 
looked out of the window. 

A gray sky ; the weathercock of a steeple, that rose 
beyond the opposite range of buildings, pointing from the 
eastward ; a sprinkle of small, spiteful-looking raindrops 
on the window-pane. In that ebb-tide of my energies, 
had I thought of venturing abroad, these tokens would 
have checked the abortive purpose. 

After several such visits to the window, 1 found 
myself getting pretty well acquainted with that little 
portion of the backside of the universe which it presented 
to my view. Over against the hotel and its adjacent 
houses, at the distance of forty or fifty yards, was the 
rear of a range of buildings, which appeared to be 
spacious, modern, and calculated for fashionable resi- 
dences. The interval between was apportioned into 
grass-plots, and here and there an apology for a garden, 
pertaining severally to these dwellings. There were 
apple-trees, and pear and peach trees, too, the fruit on 
which looked singularly large, luxuriant and alundant, 
as well it n ight, in a <stuation so warm and sheltered, 


*76 THE BLITHEOALb ROMANCE. 

and where the soil had doubtless been enriched to a 
more than natural fertility. In two or three places 
grape-vines clambered upon trellises, and bore clusters 
already purple, and promising the richness of Malta or 
Madeira in their ripened juice. The blighting winds of 
our rigid climate could not molest these trees and vines ; 
the sunshine, though descending late into this area, and 
too early intercepted by the height of the surrounding 
houses, yet lay tropically there, even when less than 
temperate in every other region. Dreary as was the 
day, the scene was illuminated by not a few sparrows and 
other birds, which spread their wings, and flitted and 
fluttered, and alighted now here, now there, and busily 
scratched their food out of the wormy earth. Most of 
these winged people seemed to have their domicile in a 
robust and healthy buttonwood-tree. It aspired upward, 
high above the roof of the houses, and spread a dense 
head of foliage half across the area. 

There was a cat — as there invariably is, in such 
places — who evidently thought herself entitled to all 
the privileges of forest-life, in this close heart of city 
conventionalisms. I watched her creeping along the 
low, flat roofs of the offices, descending a flight of 
wooden steps, gliding among the grass, and besieging 
the buttonwood-tree, with murderous purpose against its 
feathered citizens. But, after all, they were birds cf 
city breeding, and doubtless knew how to guard them 
selves against the peculiar perils of their position. 

Bewitching to my fancy are all those nooks and cran 
nies, where Nature, like a stray partridge, hides her head 
among the long-established haunts of men ! It is like 
wise U be remarked, a? a general rule, that there is fat 


THE HOTEL. 


177 


n.m of the picturesque, more truth to native and 
characteristic tendencies, and vastly greater suggestive- 
mss, in the back view of a residence, whether in town 
or country, than in its front.* The latter is always arti- 
ficial ; it is meant for the world’s eye, and is therefore a 
veil and a concealment. Realities keep in the rear, and 
put forward an advance-guard of show and humbug. 
The posterior aspect of any old farm-house, behind which 
a railroad has unexpectedly been opened, is so different 
from that looking upon the immemorial highway, that 
the spectator gets new ideas of rural life and individu- 
ality in the puff or two of steam-breath which shoots 
him past the premises. In a city, the distinction be- 
tween what is offered to the public and what is kept for 
the family is certainly not less striking. 

But, to return to my window, at the back of the hotel. 
Together with a due contemplation of the fruit-trees 
the grape-vines, the buttonwood-tree, the cat, the birds 
and many other particulars, I failed not to study the row 
of fashionable dwellings to which all these appertained. 
Here, it must be confessed, there was a general same- 
ness. From the upper story to the first floor, they were 
so much alike, that I could only conceive of the inhab- 
itants as cut out on one identical pattern, like little 
wooden toy-people of German manufacture. One long, 
united roof, with its thousands of slates glittering in the 
rain, extended over the whole. After the distinctness 
of separate characters to which I had recently been 
accustomed, it perplexed and annoyed me not to be able 
to resolve this combination of human interests into well- 
defined elements. It seemed hardly worth while for 
more than one of those families to be in existence, since 
12 


ITS 


THE BLITHE DALE ROMANCE. 


they ail had the *ime glimpse of the sky, aL .ooked into 
the same area, all received just their equal share of sun 
shine through the front windows, and all listened to 
precisely the same noises of the street on which they 
boarded. Men are so much alike in their nature, that 
they grow intolerable unless varied by their circum- 
stances. 

Just about this time, a waiter entered my room. The 
truth was, I had rung the bell and ordered a sherry- 
cobbler. 

“ Can you tell me,” I inquired, “ what families reside 
in any of those houses opposite V 

“ The one right opposite is a rather stylish boarding- 
house,” said the waiter. “Two of the gentlemen- 
boarders keep horses at the stable of our establishment. 
They do things in very good style, sir, the people that 
live there.” 

I might have found out nearly as much for myself, on 
examining the house a little more closely. In one of 
the upper chambers I saw a young man in a dressing- 
gown, standing before the glass and brushing his hair, 
for a quarter of an hour together. He then spent ar. 
equal space of time in the elaborate arrangement of his 
cravat, and finally made his appearance in a dress-coat, 
which I suspected to be newly come from the tailor’s, 
and now first put on for a dinner-party. At a window 
of die next story below, two children, prettily dressed, 
were looking out. By and by, a middle-aged gentleman 
came softly behind them, kissed the little girl, and play- 
fully pulled the little boy’s ear. It was a papa, no 
doubt, just come in from his counting-room 01 office ; 
and anon appeared mamma, stealing as softly behind 


THE HOTEL. 


179 


papa .is he ha I stolen behind the children, and laying 
her hand on his shoulder, to surprise him. Then fob 
lowed a kiss between papa and mamma ; but a noiseless 
one, for the children did not turn their heads. 

“ I bless God for these good folks ! ” thought I to my- 
se.f. “I have not seen a prettier bit of nature, in a.1 
my summer in the country, than they have shown me 
here, in a rather stylish boarding-house. I will pay 
them a little more attention, by and by.” 

On the first floor, an iron balustrade ran along in 
front of the tall and spacious -windows, evidently belong- 
ing to a back drawing-room ; and, far into the interior, 
through the arch of the sliding-doors, I could discern a 
gleam from the windows of the front apartment. There 
were no signs of present occupancy in this suite of rooms ; 
the curtains being enveloped in a protective covering, 
which allowed but a small portion of their crimson mate- 
rial to be seen. But two housemaids were industriously at 
work ; so that there was good prospect that the boarding- 
louse might not long suffer from the absence of its most 
expensive and profitable guests. Meanwhile, until they 
should appear, I cast my eyes downward to the lower 
regions. There, in the dusk that so early settles into 
such places, I saw the red glow of the kitchen-range. 
The hot cook, or one of her subordinates, with a ladle in 
her hand, came to draw a cool breath at the back-door. 
As soon as she disappeared, an Irish man-servant, in a 
white jacket, crept slyly forth, and threw away the frag- 
ments of a china dish, which, unquestionably, he had 
just broken. Soon afterwards, a lady, showily dressed, 
with a curling front of what must have been false hair, 
«rd reddish-brown, I suppose, in hue — though my 


180 


THE BL1THEDALE ROMANCE. 


remoteness allowed me only to guess at such particulars 
— this respectable mistress of the boarding-house made 
a momentary transit across the kitchen window, and 
appeared no more. I* was her final, comprehensive 
glance, in order to make sure that soup, fish and flesh 
were in a proper state of readiness, before the serving up 
of dinner. 

There was nothing else worth noticing about the 
house, unless it be that on the peak of one of the 
dormer-windows which opened out of the roof sat a 
dove, looking very dreary and forlorn ; insomuch that I 
wondered why she chose to sit there, in the chilly rain, 
while her kindred were doubtless nestling in a warm and 
comfortable dove-cote. All at once, this dove spread her 
wings, and, launching herself in the air, came flying so 
straight across the intervening space that I fully expected 
he r to alight directly on my window-sill. In the latter 
part of her course, however, she swerved aside, flew 
upward, and vanished, as did, likewise, the slight, fan* 
tastic pathos with which I had invested her. 


XVIII. 

THE BOARDING-HOUSE. 

The next day, as soon as I thought of looking again 
towards the opposite house, there sat the dove again, on 
the peak of the same dormer-window ! 

It was by no means an early hour, for, the preceding 
Evening, I had ultimately mustered enterprise enough 
to visit the theatre, had gone late to bed, and slept 
beyond all limit, in my remoteness from Silas Foster’s 
awakening horn. Dreams had tormented me, through- 
out the night. The train of thoughts which, for months 
past, had worn a track through my mind, and to escape 
which was one of my chief objects in leaving Blithedale, 
kept treading remorselessly to and fro in their old foot- 
steps, while slumber left me impotent to regulate them. 
It was not till I had quitted my three friends that they 
first began to encroach upon my dreams. In those of 
the last night, Hollingsworth and Zenobia, standing on 
either side of my bed, had bent across it to exchange a 
kiss of passion. Priscilla, beholding this, — for she 
ueem^d to be peeping in at the chamber-window, — had 
melted gradually away, and left only the sadness of hei 
expression in my heart. There it still lingered, after 1 
awoke ; one of those unreasonable sadnesses that you 
know not how to deal with, because it involves nothing 
for common sense to clutch. 

It was a gray and dripping forenoon • gloomy enough 


182 


THE BLITHED.fi. IE ROMANCE. 


in town, and still gloomier in the haunts to which my 
recollections persisted in transporting me. For, in spite 
of my efforts to think of something else, I thought how 
the gusty rain was drifting over the slopes and valleys 
of our farm ; how wet must be the foliage that over- 
shadowed the pulpit-rock ; how cheerless, in such a day,, 
my hermitage, — the tree-solitude of my owl-like hu- 
mors, — in the vine-encircled heart of the tall p. ne ! It 
was a phase of home-sickness. I had wrenched myself 
too suddenly out of an accustomed sphere. There was 
no choice, now, but to bear the pang of whatever heart- 
strings were snapt asunder, and that illusive torment 
(like the ache of a limb long ago cut off) by which a 
past mode of life prolongs itself into the succeeding one. 
I was full of idle and shapeless regrets. The thought 
impressed itself upon me that I had left duties unper- 
formed. With the power, perhaps, to act in the place 
of destiny and avert misfortune from my friends, I had 
resigned them to their fate. That cold tendency, be- 
tween instinct and intellect, which made me pry with a 
speculative interest into people’s passions and impulses, 
appeared to have gone far towards unhumanizing my 
1. eart. 

But a man cannot always decide for himself whether 
his own heart is cold or warm. It now impresses me 
that, if I erred at all in regard to Hollingsworth, Zeno- 
oia and Priscilla, it was through too much sympathy, 
rather than + .oo little. 

To escape the irksomeness of these meditations, I 
resumed my post at the window. At first sight, there 
was nothing new to be noticed. The general aspect of 
affairs was the same as yesterday, except that the more 


THE BOARDING HOUSE. 


183 


decided inclemency of to-day had driven the sparrow s to 
shelter, and kept the cat within doors; whence, how- 
ever, she soon emerged, pursued by the cook, and with 
what looked like the better half of a roast chicken in 
her mouth. The young man in the dress-coat was invis- 
ible ; the two children, in the story below, seemed to be 
romping about the room, under the superintendence of a 
nursery-maid. The damask curtains of the drawing- 
room, on the first floor, were now fully displayed, fes- 
tooned gracefully from top to bottom of the. windows, 
which extended from the ceiling to the carpet. A nar- 
rower window, at the left of the drawing-room, gave 
light to what was probably a small boudoir, within which 
1 caught the faintest imaginable glimpse of a girl’s figure, 
in airy drapery. Her arm was in regular movement, as 
if she were busy with her German worsted, or some 
other such pretty and unprofitable handiwork. 

While intent upon making out this girlish shape, 1 
became sensible that a figure had appeared at one of the 
windows of the drawing-room. There was a present- 
iment in my mind ; or perhaps my first glance, imper- 
fect and sidelong as it was, had sufficed to convey subtle 
information of the truth. At any rate, it was with no 
positive surprise, but as if I had all along expected the 
incident, that, directing my eyes thitherward, I beheld — 
like a full-length picture, in the space between the heavy 
festoons of the window-curtains — no other than Zeno- 
bia ! At the same instant, my thoughts made sure of 
the identity of the figure in the bciido r. It could only 
be Priscilla. 

Zenobia was attired, not in the almost rustic costume 
which she had he-retofore worn, but in a fashionab’e 


184 


THE BLITHE DALE ROMANCE. 


morning-dress. There was, nevertheless, on 3 familiar 
point. She had, as usual, a flower in her hair, brilliant 
and of a rare variety, else it had not been Zenobia. 
After a brief pause at the window, she turned away, 
exemplifying, in the few steps that removed her out of 
sight, that noble and beautiful motion which character- 
ized her as much as any other personal charm. Not 
one woman in a thousand could move so admirably as 
Zenobia. Many women can sit gracefully ; some can 
stand gracefully; and a few, perhaps, can assume a 
series of graceful positions. But natural movement is 
the result and expression of the whole being, and cannot 
be well and nobly performed, unless responsive to some- 
thing in the character. I often used to think that music 
-light and airy, wild and passionate, or the full har- 
mony of stately marches, in accordance with her varying 
mood — should have attended Zenobia’s footsteps. 

I waited for her reappearance. It was one peculiarity, 
distinguishing Zenobia from most of her sex, that she 
needed for her moral well-being, and never would forego, 
a large amount of physical exercise. At Blithedale, no 
inclem mcy of sky or muddiness of earth had ever im 
peded her daily walks.. Here, in town, she probably 
preferred to tread the extent of the two drawing-rooms 
and measure out the miles by spaces of forty feet, rather 
than bedmggle her skirts over the sloppy pavements. 
Accordingly, m about the time requisite to pass through 
the arch of the sliding-doors to the front window, and to 
return upon her ^teps, there she stood again, between the 
festoons of the 'rimson curtains. But another person- 
age was now ad^ed to the scene. Behind Zenobia 
appeared that facn wh>ch 1 h^ fi^.t eoco’-oter-^a in the 


TITE BOARDING-FOUSE 


1S5 

wood-path ; the man who had passed, side by side with 
her, in such mysteiious familiarity and estrangement, 
beneath my vine-curtained hermitage in the tall pine- 
tree. It was Westervelt. And though he was looking 
closely over her shoulder, it still seemed to me, as m the 
former occasion, that Zenobia repelled him, — that, per- 
chance, they mutually repelled each other, by some 
incompatibility of their spheres. 

This impression, however, might have been altogether 
the result of fancy and prejudice in me. The distance 
was so great as to obliterate any play of feature by 
which I might otherwise have been made a partaker of 
their counsels. 

There now needed only Hollingsworth and old Moodie 
to complete the knot of characters, whom a real intricacy 
of events, greatly assisted by my method of insulating 
them from other relations, had kept so long upon my 
mental stage, as actors in a drama. In itself, perhaps, 
it was no very remarkable event that they should thus 
come across me, at the moment when I imagined myself 
free. Zenobia, as I well knew, had retained an estab- 
lishment in town, and had not unfrequently withdrawn 
herself from Blithedale during brief intervals, on one 
of which occasions she had taken Priscilla along with 
her. Nevertheless, there seemed something fatal in the 
coincidence that had borne me to this one spot, of all 
•others in a great city, and transfixed me there, and com- 
pelled me again to waste my already wearied sympathies 
on affairs which were none of m.'ne, and peisons who 
cared little for me. It irritated my nerves ; it affected 
me with a kind of heart-sickness. After the effort which 
it cost ine to fling them off, — after consummating my 


IS fj 


THE BLITHEDALE ROMANCE. 


escape, as 1 thought, from these goblins of flesh xnu 
blood, and pausing to revive myself with a breath or two 
of an atmosphere in which they should have no share, 
— it was a positive despair, to find the same figures 
arraying themselves before me, and presenting their old 
problem in a shape that made it more insoluble than 
ever. 

I began to long for a catastrophe. If the noble tem- 
per of Hollingsworth’s soul were doomed to be utterly 
corrupted by the too powerful purpose which had grown 
out of what was noblest in him ; if the rich and gener- 
ous qualities of Zenobia’s womanhood might not savo 
her; if Priscilla must perish by her tenderness and 
faith, so simple and so devout, — then be it so ! Let it 
all come ! As for me, I would look on, as it seemed my 
part to do, understanding^, if my intellect could fathom 
the meaning and the moral, and, at all events, reverently 
and sadly. The curtain fallen, I would pass onward 
with my "poor individual life, which was now attenuatea 
of much of its proper substance, and diffused among 
many alien interests. 

Meanwhile, Zenobia and her companion had retreated 
from the window. Then followed an interval, during 
which I directed my eyes towards the figure in the bou- 
doir. Most certainly it was Priscilla, although dressed 
with a novel and fanciful elegance. The vague percep- 
tion of it, as viewed so far off, impressed me as if she. 
had suddenly passed out of a. chrysalis state and put 
forth wings. Her hands were not now in motion. She 
had dropt her work, and sat with her head thrown back, 
in the same attitude that I had seen several times before? 


THE BOARDING-HOUSE. 


18 T 

fcnen she seemed to be listening to an impel fectly dis- 
tinguished sound. 

Again the two figures in the drawing-room became 
visible. They were now a little withdrawn from the 
window, face to face, and, as I could see by Zenobia’s 
emphatic gestures, were discussing some subject in which 
she, at least, felt a passionate concern. By and by she 
broke away, and vanished beyond my ken. Wester- 
veit approached the window, and leaned his forehead 
against a pane of glass, displaying the sort of smile on 
his handsome features which, when I before met him, 
had let me into the secret of his gold-bordered teeth. 
Every human being, when given over to the devil, is 
sure to have the wizard mark upon him, in one form or 
another. I fancied that this smile, with its peculiar 
revelation, was the devil’s signet on the Professor. 

This man, as I had soon reason to know, was endowed 
with a cat-like circumspection ; and though precisely the 
most unspiritual quality in the world, it was almost as 
effective as spiritual insight in making him acquainted 
with whatever it suited him to discover. He now 
proved it, considerably to my discomfiture, by detecting 
and recognizing me, at my post of observation. Per- 
haps I ought to have blushed at being caught in such an 
evident scrutiny of Professor Westervelt and his affairs. 
Perhaps I did blush. Be that as it might, I retained pres- 
ence of mind enough not to make my position yet mo"e 
irksome, by the poltroonery of drawing back. 

Westervelt looked into the depths of the drawing-room, 
and beckoned. Immediately afterwards, Zenobia ap- 
peared at the window, with color much heightened, and 
eyes which, as my conscienci whispered me were shoofc 


IBS 


THE BLITHE DALE ROMANCE. 


ing bright arrows, barbed with scorn, across the inter 
vening space, directed full at my sensibilities as a gen 
tleman. If the trutn must be told, far as her flight-shot 
was, those arrows hit the mark. She signified her 
recognition ol me by a gesture with her head and hand, 
comprising at once a salutation and dismissal. The 
next moment, she administered one of those pitiless 
rebukes which a woman always has at hand, ready for 
an offence (and which she so seldom spares, on due 
occasion), by letting down a white linen curtain between 
the festoons of the damask ones. It fell like the drop- 
curtain of a theatre, in the interval between the acts 
Priscilla had disappeared from the boudoir. But the 
dove still kept I.er desolate perch on the peak of the 
attic-window. 


XIX. 

ZENOBI .VS DRAWING-BOOM. 

The remainder of tne day, so far as I was concerned, 
was spent in meditating- on these recent incidents. 1 
contrived, and alternately rejected, innumerable methods 
of accounting for the presence of Zenobia and Priscilla, 
and the connection of Westervelt with both. It must 
be owned, loo, that I had a keen, revengeful sense of 
the insult inflicted by Zenobia ’s scornful recognition, 
and more particularly by her letting down the curtain, 
as if such were the proper barrier to be interposed 
between a character like hers and a perceptive faculty 
likf mine. For, was mine a mere vulgar curiosity ? 
Zenobia should have known me better than to suppose 
it. She should have been able to appreciate that quality 
of the intellect and the heart which impelled me (often 
against my own will, and to the detriment of my own 
comfort) to live in other lives, and to endeavor — by 
generous sympathies, by delicate intuitions, by taking 
note of things too slight for record, and by bringing my 
human spirit into manifold accordance with the compan 
ions whom God assigned me — to learn the secret which 
was hidden even from themselves. 

Of all possible observers, methought a woman like 
Zenobia and a man like Hollingsworth should have 
selected me. And, now, when the event has long been 
past, 1 retain the same opinion of my fitness for the 


9C 


THE ^BLITIIEDALE ROMANCE. 


office True, I might have condemned them. Had I 
been judge, as well as witness, my sentence might hare 
been stern as that of destiny itself. But, still, no trait 
of original nobility of character, no struggle against 
temptation, — no iron necessity of will, on the one hand, 
nor extenuating circumstance to be derived from passion 
and despair, on the other, — no remorse that might coexist 
with error, even if powerless to prevent it, — no proud 
repentance that should claim retribution as a meed, — 
would go unappreciated. True, again, I might give my 
full assent to the punishment which was sure to follow. 
But it w T ould be given mournfully, and with undimin- 
ished love. And, after all was finished, I would come, 
as if to gather up the white ashes of those who had per* 
ished at the stake, and to tell the world — the wrong 
being now atoned for — how much had perished there 
which it had never yet known how to praise. 

I sat in my rocking-chair, too far withdrawn from 
the window to expose myself to another rebuke like 
that already inflicted. My eyes still wandered towards 
the opposite house, but without effecting any new dis- 
coveries. Late in the afternoon, the weathercock on the 
church-spire indicated a change of wind ; the sun shone 
limly out, as if the golden wine of its beams were min- 
gled half-and-half with water. Nevertheless, they kin- 
dled up the whole range of edifices, threw a glow over 
the windows glistened on the wet roofs, and, slowly 
withdrawing upward, perched upon the chimney-tops ; 
thence they took a higher flight, and lingered an instant 
on the tip of the spire, making it the final pc int of more 
cheerful light in the whole sombre scene. The next 
moment it was all gone. The twilight fell into the 


zenobia’s drawing-room. 


19 


urea like a shower of dusky snow , and before it was 
nuite lark, the gong of the hotel summoned me to tea. 

When I returned to my chamber, the glow of an 
astral-lamp was penetrating mistily through the white 
curtain of Zenobia’s drawing-room. The shadow of a 
passing figure was now and then cast upon this medium, 
but with too vague an outline for even my adventurous 
conjectures to read the hieroglyphic that it presented. 

All at once, it occurred to me how very absurd was 
my behavior, in thus tormenting myself with crazy 
hypotheses as to what was going on within that drawing- 
room, when it was at my option to be personally present 
there. My relations with Zenobia, as yet unchanged, — 
as a familiar friend, and associated in the same life-long 
enterprise, — gave me the right, and made it no more 
than kindly courtesy demanded, to call on her. Noth- 
ing, except our habitual independence of conventional 
rules at Blithedale, could have kept me from sooner 
recognizing this duty. At all events, it should now be 
performed. 

In compliance with this sudden impulse, I soon found 
myself actually within the house, the rear of which, for 
two days past, I had been so sedulously watching. A 
servant took my card, and immediately returning, ush- 
ered me up stairs. On the way, I heard a rich, and, as 
it were, triumphant burst of music from a piano, in which 
I felt Zenobia’s character, although heretofore J had 
known nothing of her skill upon the instrument. Two 
or three canary-birds, excited by this gush of sound, 
sang piercingly, and did their utmost to produce a kin- 
dred melody A bright illumination streamed through 
4ie door of the front drawing-room ; and I had barely 


192 


THE BLITHEDALE ROMANCE. 


stept across the threshold before Zenobia came forward 
to meet me, laughing, and with an extended hand. 

“Ah, Mr. Coverdale,” said she, still smiling, but, as I 
thought, with a good deal of scornful anger underneath, 
“ it has gratified me to see the interest which you con- 
tinue to take in my affairs ! I have long recognized 
you as a sort of transcendental Yankee, with all the 
native propensity of your countrymen to investigate 
matters that come within their range, but rendered 
almost poetical, in your case, by the refined methods 
which you adopt for its gratification. After all, it was 
an unjustifiable stroke, on my part, — was it not ? — to 
let down the window-curtain ! ” 

“ I cannot call it a very wise one,” returned I, with a 
secret bitterness, which, no doubt, Zenobia appreciated. 
“ It is really impossible to hide anything, in this world, 
to say nothing of the next. All that we ought to ask, 
therefore, is, that the witnesses of our conduct, and the 
speculators on our motives, should be capable of taking 
the highest view which the circumstances of the case 
may admit. So much being secured, I, for one, would 
be most happy in feeling myself followed everywhere 
by an indefatigable human sympathy.” 

“We must trust for intelligent sympathy to our 
guardian angels, if any there be,” said Zenobia. “ As 
long as the only spectator of my poor tragedy is a 
young man at the window of his hotel, I must still 
claim the liberty to drop the curtain.” 

While this passed, as Zenobia’s hand was extended, l 
had applied the very slightest touch of my fingers to 
her own. In spite of an external freedom, her manner 
made me sensible "hat we stood upon no real terras of 


zenobia’s drawing-room. 


19M 

confidence. The thought came sadly across me, how 
great was the contrast betwixt this interview and our 
first meeting. Then, in the warm light of the country 
fireside, Zenobia had greeted me cheerily and hopefully, 
with a full, sisterly grasp of the hand, conveying as much 
kindness in it as other women could have evinced tty 
the pressure of both arms around my neck, or by yield- 
ing a cheek to the brotherly salute. The difference was 
as complete as between her appearance at that time, — so 
simply attired, and with only the one superb flower in her 
hair, — and now, when her beauty was set off by all that 
dress and ornament could do for it. And they did much. 
Not, indeed, that they created or added anything to what 
Nature had lavishly done for Zenobia. But, those 
costly robes which she had on, those flaming jewels on 
her neck, served as lamps to display the personal advan- 
tages wnich required nothing less than such ari illumi- 
nation to be fully seen. Even her characteristic flower 
though it seemed to be still there, had undergone a cold 
and bright transfiguration ; it was a flower exquisitely 
imitated in jeweller’s work, and imparting the last 
touch that transformed Zenobia into a work of art. 

“ I scarcely feel,’ I could not forbear saying, “as if we 
had ever met before. How many years ago it seems 
since we last sat beneath Eliot’s pulpit, with Hollings- 
worth extended on the fallen leaves, and Priscilla at his 
feet ! Can it be, Zenobia, that you ever really numbered 
yourself with our little band of earnest, thoughtful, phi- 
lanthropic . aborers ? ” 

“Those ideas have their time and place,” she an- 
swered, coldly. “ But I fancy it must be a ve rycircum' 
scribed mind that can find room for no otherc. * 

13 


194 


THE BLITHEDALE ROMANCE 


Her manner bewildered me. Literally, moreover, 1 
was dazzled by the brilliancy of the room. A chandelier 
hung down in the centre, glowing with I know not how 
many lights ; there were septate lamps, also, on two or 
three tables, and on marble brackets, adding their white 
radiance to that of the chandelier. The furniture was 
exceedingly rich. Fresh from our old farm-house, with 
its homely board and benches in the dining-room, and a 
few wicker chairs in th? best parlor, it struck me that 
here was the fulfilment of every fantasy of an imagina- 
tion revelling in various methods of costly self indu> 
gence and splendid ease. Pictures, marbles, vases, — in 
brief, more shapes of luxury than there could be any 
object in enumerating, except for an auctioneer’s adver- 
tisement, — and the whole repeated and doubled by 
the reflection of a great mirror, which showed me Zeno- 
bia’s proud figure, likewise, and my own. It cost me, I 
acknowledge, a bitter sense of shame, to perceive in 
myself a positive effort to bear up against the effect 
which Zenobia sought to impose on me. I reasoned 
against her, in my secret mind, and strove so to keep 
my footing. In the gorgeousness with which she had 
surrounded herself, — in the redundance of personal orna* 
ment, which the largeness of her physical nature and the 
rich type of her beauty caused to seem so suitable, — I 
malevolently beheld the true character of the woman, 
passionate, luxurious, lacking simplicity, not deeply 
refined, incapable of pure and perfect taste. 

But, the next instant, she was too powerful fo r all my 
opposing struggles. I saw how fit it was that she 
should make herself as gorgeous as she pleased, and 
shotud do a thousand things that would have been ridic 
ulous in the poor. thin, weakly characters of oU*p* 


ZENOBIA S DRAWING-ROOM. 


195 


women. To this day, however, I hardly know whethei 
I then beheld Zenobia in her truest attitude, or whether 
that were the truer one in which she had presented her- 
self at Bliihedale. In both, there was something like 
the illusion which a great actress flings around her. 

“ Have you given up Blithedale forever ? ” I inquired. 

“ Why should you think so ? ” asked she. 

“ I cannot tell,” answered I ; “ except that it appears 
all like a dream that we were ever there together.” 

‘‘It is not so to me,” said Zenobia. “I should think 
it a poor and meagre nature, that is capable of but one 
set of forms, and must convert all the past into a dream 
merely because the present happens to be unlike it. 
WHy should we be content with our homely life of a 
few months past, to the exclusion of all other modes ? I* 
was good ; but there are other lives as good, or better 
Not, you will understand, that I condemn those who give 
themselves up to it more entirely than I, for myself, 
should deem it wise to do.” 

It irritated me, this self-complacent, condescending 
qualified approval and criticism of a system to which 
many individuals — perhaps as highly endowed as our 
gorgeous Zenobia — had contributed their all of earthly 
endeavor, and their loftiest aspirations. I determined to 
make proof if there were any spell that would exorcise 
her out of the part which she seemed to be acting. She 
should be compelled to give me a glimpse of something 
true; some nature, some passion, no matter whether 
right or wrong, provided it were rea . 

Your allusion tc that class of circumscribed charac- 
ters, who can live only in one mode of life,” remarked I 
coolly, “ reminds me of our poor friend Hollingsworth. 
I ossibly he was in your thoughts when you spoke thu» 


196 


THE BLITHE DALE ROMANCE. 


Poor fellow! It is a pity that, by the fault of a narrow 
education, he should have so completely immolated him 
self to that one idea of his ; especially as the slightest 
modicum of common sense would teach him its utter 
impracticability. Now that I have returned into (he 
world, and can look at his project from a distance, it 
requires quite all my real regard for this respectable and 
well-intentioned man, to prevent me laughing at him. — 
as I find society at large does.” 

Zenobia’s eyes darted lightning; her cheeks flushed; 
the vividness of her expression was like the effect of a 
powerful light flaming up suddenly within her. My 
experiment had fully succeeded. She had shown me 
the true flesh and blood of her heart, by thus involunta- 
rily resenting my slight, pitying, half-kind, half-scornful 
mention of the man who was all in all with her. She 
herself probably felt this ; for it was hardly a moment 
before she tranquillized her uneven breath, and seemed 
as proud and self-possessed as ever. 

“ I rather imagine,” said she, quietly, “ that your 
appreciation falls short of Mr. Hollingsworth’s just 
claims. Blind enthusiasm, absorption in one idea, I 
grant, is generally ridiculous, and must be fatal to the 
respectability of an ordinary man; it requires a very 
high and powerful character to make it otherwise. But 
a great man — as, perhaps, you do not know — attains 
his normal condition only through the inspiration of one 
great idea. As a friend of Mr. Hollingsworth, and, at 
the same time, a calm observer, I must tell you that he 
seems to me such a man. But you are very pardonable 
for fancying him ridiculous. Doubtless, he is so — to 
you ! There can be no truer test of the noble and 
heroic, in any indiAidual, than the degree in which he 


zenobia’s drawing-boom. 


197 


[tosscsses the faculty of distinguishing heroism from 
absurdity.” 

I dared make nc retort to Zenobia’s concluding apo- 
thegm. In truth, I admired her fidelity. It gave me a 
new sense of Hollingsworth’s native power, to discover 
that his influence was no less potent with this beautifu 
woman, here, in the midst of artificial life, than it had 
been at the foot of the gray rock, and among the wild 
birch-trees of the wood-path, when she so passionately 
pressed his hand against her heart. The great, rude, 
shaggy, swarthy man ! And Zenobia loved him 1 

“ Did you bring Priscilla with you ? ” I resumed. 
" Do you know 1 have sometimes fancied it not quite 
safe, considering the susceptibility of her temperament, 
that she should be so constantly within the sphere of a 
man like Hollingsworth. Such tender and delicate 
natures, among your sex, have often, I believe, a very 
adequate appreciation of the heroic element in men. 
But then, again, I should suppose them as likely as any 
other women to make a reciprocal impression. Hollings- 
worth could hardly give his affections to a person capa- 
ble of taking an independent stand, but only to one whom 
he might absorb into himself. He has certainly shown 
great tenderness for Priscilla.” 

Zenobia had turned aside. But I caught the reflection 
of her face in the mirror, and saw that it was very pale, 
— as pale, in her rich attire, as if a shroud were round her. 

“ Priscilla is here,” said she, her voice a little lower 
thin usual. “ Have not you learnt as much from your 
chamber window ? Would you like to see her ? ” 

She made a step or two into the back drawing-room, 
and called, 

“ Priscilla ! Dear Priscilla ' w 


XX. 

THEY VANISH. 

Priscii^. immediately answered the summons, and 
made her appearance through the djor of the boudoir. 

I had conceived tue idea, which I now recognized as a 
very foolish one, that Zenobia would have taken meas- 
ures to debar me from an interview with this girl, be- 
tween whom and herself there was so utter an opposition 
of their dearest interests, that, on one part or the other, a 
great grief, if not likewise a great wrong, seemed a mat- 
ter of necessity. But, as Priscilla was only a leaf float- 
ing on the dark current of events, without influencing 
them by her own choice or plan, — as she probably 
guessed not whither the stream was bearing her, nor 
perhaps even felt its inevitable movement, — there could 
be no peril of her communicating to me any intelligence 
with regard to Zenobia’s purposes. 

On perceiving me, she came forward with great quiet- 
ude of manner ; and when I held out my hand, her owr 
moved slightly towards it, as if attracted by a feeble 
degree of magnetism. 

“ I am glad to see you, my dear Priscilla,” said I, still 
Holding her hand ; “ but everything that I meet with 
now-a-days, makes me wonder whether I am awake. 
You, especially, have always seemed like a figure in a 
iream, and now more than ever.” 

“ O, t/iere is substance in these fingers of mine,” sh# 


THE If VANISH. 


199 


answered, giving my hand the faintest possible pressure, 
and then taking away her own. “ Why do you call me 
a dream ? Zenobia is much more like one than I ; she 
is so very, very beautiful ! And, I suppose,” added Pris* 
cilia, as if thinking aloud, “everybody sees it, as I do.” 

But, for my part, it was Priscilla’s beauty, not Zeno* 
bia’s, of which I was thinking at that moment. She 
was a person who could be quite obliterated, so far as 
beauty went, by anything unsuitable in her attire ; her 
charm was not positive and material enough to bear up 
against a mistaken choice of color, for instance, or fash- 
ion. It was safest, in her case, to attempt no art of 
dress ; for it demanded the most perfect taste, or else 
the happiest accident in the world, to give her precisely 
the adornment which she needed. She was now dressed 
in pure white, set off with some kind of a gauzy fabric, 
which — as I bring up her figure in my memory, with a 
faint gleam on her shadowy hair, and her dark eyes bent 
shyly on mine, through all the vanished years — seems 
to be floating about her like a mist. I wondered what 
Zenobia meant by evolving so much loveliness out of 
this poor girl. It was what few women could afford to 
do ; for, as I looked from one to the other, the sheen and 
splendor of Zenobia’s presence took nothing from Pris- 
cilla’s softer spell, if it might not rather be thought to 
add to it. 

“ What do you think of her ? ” asked Zenobia. 

I could not understand the look of melancholy kind- 
ness with which Zenobia regarded her. She advanced a 
step, and beckoning Priscilla near her, kissed her cheek ; 
then, with a «light gesture of repulse, she moved to the 
other side of the room. I followed. 


*>00 


THE BLITHEDALE ROMANCfc 


“ She is h w onderful creature,” I said. Ever since 
the came among us, I have been dimly sensible of just 
this charm which you have brought out. But it was 
never absolutely visible till now. She is as lovely as a 
flower ! ” 

•‘Well «ay so .if you like,’ answered Zenobia. “You 
are a poet, — at least, as poets go, now-a-days, — and 
must be allowed to make an opera-glass of your imagin- 
ation, when you look at women. I wonder, in such Ar- 
cadian freedom of railing in love as we have lately 
enjoyed, it never occurred to you to fall in love with 
Priscilla. In society, indeed, a genuine American never 
dreams of stepping across the inappreciable air-line which 
separates one class from another. But what was rank 
to the colonists of Blithedale ? ” 

“ There were other reasons,” I replied, “ why 1 should 
have demonstrated myself an ass, had I fallen in love 
with Priscilla. By the by, has Hollingsworth ever seen 
her in this dress ? ” 

“ Why do you bring up his name at every turn ? ” 
asked Zenobia, in an under tone, and with a malign look 
which wandered from my face to Priscilla’s. “You 
know not what you do ! It is dangerous, sir, believe 
me, to tamper thus with earnest human passions, out of 
vour own mere idleness, and for your sport. I will 
9ndure it no longer! Take care that it does not happen 
again ! I warn you ! ” 

“ You partly wrong me, if not wholly,” I responded. 
‘ It is an uncertain sense of some duty to perform, that 
"rings my thoughts, and therefore niy words, continually 
o wat one point.” 

“ O this stale excuse of duty ! ” said Zenobia, in a whis- 


THEY VANISH 


201 


per so full of scorn that it penetrated me like the hiss of 
a serpent. “ I have often heard it before, from those who 
sought to interfere with me, and I know precisely what 
itsignifies. Bigotry ; self-conceit ; an insolent curiosity; 
a meddlesome temper; a cold-blooded criticism, founded 
on a shallow interpretation of half-perceptions; a mon- 
strous scepticism in regard to any conscience or any wis- 
dom, except one’s own ; a most irreverent propensity to 
thrust Providence aside, and substitute one’s self in its 
awful place; — out of these, and other motives as miser- 
able as these, comes your idea of duty ! But, beware, 
sir! With all your fancied acuteness, you step blind- 
fold into these affairs. For any mischief that may 
follow your interference, I hold you responsible ! ” 

It was evident that, with but a little further provoca- 
tion, the lioness would turn to bay ; if, indeed, such were 
not her attitude already. I bowed, and, not very well 
knowing what else to do, was about to withdraw. But, 
glancing again towards Priscilla, who had retreated into 
a comer, there fell upon my heart an intolerable burthen 
of despondency, the purport of which I could not tell, 
but only felt it to bear reference to her. I approached 
her, and held out my hand; a gesture, however, to 
which she made no response. It was always one of her 
peculiarities that she seemed to shrink from even the 
most friendly touch, unless it were Zenobia’s or Hollings- 
worth’s. Zenobia, all this while, stood watching us, but 
with a careless expression, as if it mattered very little 
what might pass. 

“ Priscilla,” I inquired, lowering my voice, “ when do 
you go back to Blithedale ? ” 

“Whenever they please to take me,’ said she. 


202 


THE BLITHEDALE ROMANCE. 


“ Did you come away of your own free will ! * 
asked. 

“ I am blown about like a leaf,” she replied. “ 1 
r*3ver have any free w ill.” 

“ Does Hollingsworth know that you are here ? ’ 
said I. 

“ He bade me come,” answered Priscilla. 

She looked at me, I thought, with an air of surprise, 
as if the idea were incomprehensible that she should 
have taken this step without his agency. 

“ Wha+ a gripe this man has laid upon her whole 
being!” muttered I, between my teeth. “Well, as 
Zenobia so kindly intimates, I have no more business 
here. I wash my hands of it all. On Hollingsworth’s 
head be the consequences ! Priscilla,” I added, aloud, 
“ I know not that ever we may meet again. Farewell ! ” 

As I spoke the word, a carriage had rumbled along the 
street, and stopt before the house. The door-bell rang, 
and steps were immediately afterwards heard on the 
staircase. Zenobia had thrown a shawl over her dress. 

“ Mr. Coverdale,” said she, with cool courtesy, “ you 
will perhaps excuse us. We have an engagement, and 
are going out.” 

“ Whither ? ” I demanded. 

“ Is not that a little more than you are entitled ta 
inquire ? ” said she, with a smile. “ At all events, it 
does not suit me to tell you.” 

The door of the drawing-room opened, and Wester- 
velt appeared. I observed that he was elaborately 
dressed, as if for some grand entertainment. My dislike 
for this man was infinite. At that moment it amounted 
to nothing less than a creeping of the flesh, as when, 
feeling about in a dark pkue, one touches something 


THEY VANISH. 


203 


cold and slimy, and questions what the secret hateful- 
ness may be. And still I could not but acknowledge 
that, for personal beauty, for polish of manner, for all 
that externally befits a gentleman, there was hardly 
another like him. After bowing to Zenobia, and gra 
ciously saluting Priscilla in her comer, he recognized 
me by a slight but courteous inclination. 

“ Come, Priscilla,” said Zenobia ; “ it is time. Mr. 
Coverdale, good-evening.” 

As Priscilla moved slowly forward, I met her in the 
middle of the drawing-room. 

“ Priscilla,” said I, in the hearing of them all, “ do 
yiu know whither you are going?” 

“ I do not know,” she answered. 

“ Is it wise to go, and is it your choice to go ? ” 1 
usked. “ If not, I am your friend, and Hollingsworth’s 
friend. Tell me so, at once.” 

“Possibly,” observed Westervelt, smiling, “Priscilla 
sees in me an older friend than either Mr. Coverdale or 
Mr. Hollingsworth. I shall willingly leave the matter 
at her option.” 

While thus speaking, he made a gesture of kindly 
invitation, and Priscilla passed me, with the gliding 
movement of a sprite, and took his offered arm. He 
offered the other to Zenobia ; but she turned her proud 
and beautiful face upon him, with a look which — judg- 
ing from what I caught of it in profile — would undoubt- 
edly hav3 smitten the man dead, had he possessed any 
heart, or had this glance attained to it. It seemed to 
rebound, however, from his courteous visage, like an 
arrow from polished steel. They all thiee descended 
the stairs; and when I likewise reached me street-doer 
the carriage was already rolling away 


XXI. 

AN OLD ACQUAINTANCE. 

Thus excluded from everybody’s confidence, and 
taining no further, by my most earnest study, than to 
an uncertain sense of something hidden from me, it 
would appear reasonable that I should have flung ofT all 
these alien perplexities. Obviously, my best course was 
to betake myself to new scenes. Here I was only an 
intruder. Elsewhere there might be circumstances in 
which I could establish a personal interest, and people 
who would respond, with a portion of their sympathies, 
for so much as I should bestow of mine. 

Nevertheless, there occurred to me one other thing to 
be done. Bemembering old Moodie, and his relation- 
ship with Priscilla, I determined to seek an interview 
for the purpose of ascertaining whether the knot of 
affairs was as inextricable on that side as I found it on 
all others. Being tolerably well acquainted with the 
old man’s haunts, I went, the next day, to the saloon of 
a certain establishment about which he often lurked. Il 
was a reputable place enough, affording good enter 
tainment in the way of meat, drink, and fumigation 
and there, in my young and idle days and nights, when 
I was neither nice nor wise, I had often amused myself 
with watching the staid humors and sober jollities of the 
thirsty souls around me. 

At my first pntrance, old Moodie was net there. Th« 


AN OLD ACQUAINTANCE. 


20b 


more palientljr to await him, I lighted a cigar, and estab- 
lishing myself in a corner, took a quiet, and, by sympathy, 
a boozy kind of pleasure in the customary life that was 
going forward. The saloon was fitted up with a good 
deal of taste. There were pictures on the walls, and 
among them an oil-painting of a beef-steak, with such an 
admirable show of juicy tenderness, that the beholder 
sighed to think it merely visionary, and incapable of 
ever being put upon a gridiron. Another work of high 
art was the life-like representation of a noble sirloin ; 
another, the hind-quarters of a deer, retaining the hoofs 
and tawny fur ; another, the head and shoulders of a 
salmon ; and, still more exquisitely finished, a brace of 
canvas-back ducks, in which the mottled feathers were 
depicted with the accuracy of a daguerreotype. Some 
very hungry painter, I suppose, had wrought these sub- 
jects of still life, heightening his imagination with his 
appetite, and earning, it is to be hoped, the privilege of 
a daily dinner ofF whichever of his pictorial viands he 
liked best. Then, there was a fine old cheese, in which 
you could almost discern the mites ; and some sardines, 
on a small plate, very richly done, and looking as if 
oozy with the oil in which they had been smothered. 
All these things were so perfectly imitated, that you 
seemed to have the genuine article before you, and yet 
with an indescribable ideal charm; it took away the 
grossness from what was fleshiest and fattest, and thus 
helped the life of man, even in its earthliest relations, to 
appear rich and noble, as well as warm, cheerful, and 
substantial. There were pictures, too, of gallant revel- 
lers, — those of the old time, — Flemish, apparently, — 
with doublets and slashed sleeves, — drinking their wine 


206 


THE BLITHE DALE ROMANCE. 


out of fantastic long-stemmed glasses ; quaffing joy 
ously, quaffing forever, with inaudible laughter and 
soug, while the Champagne bubbled immortally agniust 
their mustaches, or the purple tide of Burgundy ran 
inexhaustibly down their throats. 

But, in an obscure corner of the saloon, there was a 
little picture — excellently done, moreover — of a rag 
ged, bloated, New England toper, stretched out on a 
bench, in the heavy, apoplectic sleep of drunkenness. 
The death-in-life was too well portrayed. You smell 
the fumy liquor that had brought on this syncope. 
Your only comfort lay in the forced reflection, that, real 
as he looked, the poor caitiff was but imaginary, — a bit 
of painted canvas, whom no delirium tremens, nor so 
much as a retributive headache, awaited, on the mor- 
row. 

By this time, it being past eleven o’clock, the two 
barkeepers of the saloon were in pretty constant activity 
One of these young men had a rare faculty in the con 
coction of gin-cocktails. It was a spectacle to behold 
how, with a tumbler in each hand, he tossed the con 
tents from one to the other. Never conveying it awry 
nor spilling the least drop, he compelled the frothy 
liquor, as it seemed to me, to spout forth from one glass 
and descend into the other, in a great parabolic curve, as 
well defined at d calculable as a planet’s orbit. He had 
a good forehead, with a particularly large development 
just above the eyebrows; fine intellectual gifts, no doubt, 
which he had educated to this profitable end; being 
famous for nothing but gin-cocktails, and commanding a 
fair salary by his one accomplishment. These cocktails, 
and oth?t artifi dal combinations of liquor (of which 


AN OLD ACQUAINTANCE. 


20 i 


there were at east a score, though mostly, I suspect 
fantastic in their differences), were much in favor with 
the younger class of customers, who, at furthest, had 
only reached the second stage of potatory life. The 
stanch old soakers, on the other hand, — men who, if 
put on tap, would have yielded a red alcoholic liquor by 
way of blood, — usually confined themselves to plain 
brandy-and-water, gin, or West India rum; and, often- 
times, they prefaced their dram with some medicinal 
remark as to the wholesomeness and stomachic qualities 
of that particular drink. Two or three appeared to have 
bottles of their own behind the counter ; and, winking 
one red eye to the barkeeper, he forthwith produced 
these choicest and peculiar cordials, which it was a mat- 
ter of great interest and favor, among their acquaint 
ances, to obtain a sip of. 

Agreeably to the Yankee habit, under whatever cir- 
cumstances, the deportment of all these good fellows, old 
or young, was decorous and thoroughly correct. They 
grew only the more sober in their cups ; there was no 
confused babble nor boisterous laughter. They sucked 
in the joyous fire of the decanters, and kept it smoulder- 
ing in their inmost recesses, with a bliss known only to 
the heart which it warmed and comforted. Their eyes 
twinkled a little, to be sure ; they hemmed vigorously 
after each glass, and laid a hand upon the pit of the 
stomach, as if the pleasant titillation there was what 
constituted the tangible part of their enjoyment. In that 
spot, unquestionably, and not in the brain, was the acme 
of the whole affair. But the true purpose of their drink 
ing — and one that will induce men to drink, or do some- 
thing equivalent, as long as this weary world sha'b 


20S 


THE BL1THEDALE ROMANCE. 


endure - • • was the renewed youth and vigt nr, tl e brisk, 
cheerful sense of things present and to come, with 
which, for about a quarter of an hour, the dram per- 
meated their systems. And when such quarters of an 
hour can be obtained in some mode less baneful to the 
great sum of a man’s life, — but, nevertheless, with a 
little spice of impropriety, to give it a wild flavor, — we 
temperance people may ring out our bells for victory ! 

The prettiest object in the saloon was a tiny fountain, 
which threw up its feathery jet through the counter, and 
sparkled down again into an oval basin, or lakelet, con- 
taining several gold-fishes. There was a bed of bright 
sand at the bottom, strewn with coral and rock-work ; 
and the fishes went gleaming about, now turning up the 
sheen of a golden side, and now vanishing into the 
shadows of the water, like the fanciful thoughts that 
coquet with a poet in his dream. Never before, I 
imagine, did a company of water-drinkers remain so 
entirely uncontaminated by the bad example around 
them ; nor could I help wondering that it had not 
occurred to any freakish inebriate to empty a glass of 
liquor into their lakelet. What a delightful idea ! Whr. 
would not be a fish, if he could inhale jollity with the 
essential element of his existence ! 

I had began to despair of meeting old Moodie, when, all 
at once, I recognized his hand and arm protruding from 
behind a screen that was set up for the accommodation 
of bashful topers. As a matter of course, he had one of 
Priscilla’s little purses, and was qu.etly insinuating it 
under the notice of a person who stood near. This was 
always old Moodie’s way. You hardly ever saw him 
advancing towards you, but became aware of his proxim 


N OLD ACQUAINTANCE 


209 


ity without being able to guess how he had come thither, 
He glided about like a spirit, assuming visibility close tc 
your elbow, offering his petty trifles of merchandise- 
remaining long enough for you to purchase, if so de- 
posed, and then talcing himself off, between two breaths, 
while you happened to be thinking of something else. 

By a sort of sympathetic impulse that often controlled 
me in those more impressible days of my life, I was 
induced to approach this old man in a mode as undemon- 
strative as his own. Thus, when, according to his cus- 
tom, he was probably just about to vanish, he found me 
at his elbow. 

“ Ah ! ” said he, with more emphasis than was usual 
with him. “ It is Mr. Coverdale ! ” 

“ Yes, Mr. Moodie, your old acquaintance,” answered 
1. “It is some time now since we ate our luncheon 
together at Blithedale, and a good deal longer since our 
little talk together at the street-comer.” 

“ That was a good while ago,” said the old man. 

And he seemed inclined to say not a word more. His 
existence looked so colorless and torpid, — so very 
faintly shadowed on the canvas of reality, — that I was 
half afraid lest he should altogether disappear, even 
while my eyes were fixed full upon his figure. He was 
certainly the wretchedest old ghost in the world, with 
his crazy hat, the dingy handkerchief about his throat, 
his suit of threadbare gray, and especially that patch 
over his right eye, behind which he always seemed to bo 
hiding himself. There was one method, however, of 
bringing him out into somewhat stronger relief. A glas? 
of brandy would effect it. Perhaps the gentle r influence 
of a bottle of claret might do the same. Nor could - 
14 


210 


THE BLITHEDALE ROMANCE. 


think it a matter for the recording angel to write down 
against me. if — with my painful consciousness of the 
frost in this old man’s blood, and the positive ice that 
had congealed about his heart — I should thaw him out, 
were it only for an hour, with the summer warmth of a 
little wine. What else could possibly be done for him? 
How else could he be imbued with energy enough to 
hope for a happier state hereafter? How e]se be 
inspired to say his prayers ? For there are states of our 
spiritual system when the throb of the soul’s life is too 
faint and weak to render us capable of religious aspira- 
tion. 

“Mr. Moodie,” said I, “shall we lunch together? 
And would you like to drink a glass of wine ? ” 

His one eye gleamed. He bowed ; and it impressed 
me that he grew to be more of a man at once, either in 
anticipation of the wine, or as a grateful response to mv 
good fellowship in offering it. 

“ With pleasure,” he replied. 

The barkeeper, at my request, showed us into a pri- 
vate room, and soon afterwards set some fried oysters 
and a bottle of claret on the table ; and I saw the old 
man glance curiously at the label of the bottle, as if to 
learn the brand. 

“ It should be good wine,” I remarked, “ if it have any 
right to its label.” 

“ You cannot suppose, sir,” said Moodie, with a sigh, 
‘that a poor old fellow like me knows any difference in 
wines 

And yet, in his way of handling the glass, in his 
preliminary snuff at the aroma, in his first cautious sip 
of the wine, and the gustatory skill with which he gave 


AN OLD ACQUAINTANCE. 


2 . 


nis palate the full advantage of it, it was impossible not 
to recognize the connoisseur. 

“ I fancy, Mr. Moodie,” said I, “ you are a much bet- 
ter judge of wines than I have yet learned to be. Tell 
me fairly, — did you never drink it where the grape 
grows ? ” 

“ How should that have been, Mr. Coverdale ? ” 
answered old Moodie, shyly; but then he took courage 
as it were, and uttered a feeble little laugh. “ The flavor 
of this wine,” added he, “ and its perfume, still more 
than its taste, makes me remember that I was once a 
young man.” 

“ I wish, Mr. Moodie,” suggested I, — not that 1 
greatly cared about it, however, but was only anxious to 
draw him into some talk about Priscilla and Zenobia, — 
“ I wish, while we sit over our wine, you would favor 
me with a few of those youthful reminiscences.” 

“ Ah,” said he, shaking his head, “they might inter- 
est you more than you suppose. But I had better be 
silent, Mr. Coverdale. If this good wine, — though 
claret, I suppose, is not apt to play such a trick, — but if 
it should make my tongue run too freely, I could never 
look you in the face again.” 

“ You never did look me in the face, Mr. Moodie,” 1 
replied, “ until this very moment.” 

“ Ah ! ” sighed old Moodie. 

It was wonderful, however, what an effect the mild 
grape-juice wrought upon him. It was not in the wine, but 
in the associations which it seemed to bring up. Instead 
of the mean, slouching, furtive, painfully depressed air of 
an old city vagabond, more like a gray kennel-rat than 
any other living thing, he began to take the aspect of a 


THE BLITHE DALE ROMANCE. 


I- 


decayed gentleman. Even his garments — especially 
after I had myself quaffed a glass or two — looked lea. 
shabby than when we first sat down. There was, by 
and by, a certain exuberance and elaborateness of ges- 
ture and manner, oddly in contrast with all that I had 
hitherto seen of him. Anon, with hardly any impulse 
from me, old Moodie began to talk. His communica 
tions referred exclusively to a long past and more fortun 
ate period of his life, with only a few unavoidable allu 
sions to the circumstances that had reduced him to his 
present state. But, having once got the clue,' my subse» 
quent researches acquainted me with the main facts of 
the following narrative ; although, in writing it out, my 
pen has perhaps allowed itself a trifle of romantic and 
legendary license, worthier of a small poet than of a 
grave biographer. 


XXII. 

FAUNTLEROY. 


F.ve-and-twenty years ago, at the epoch of this stoiy 
the*e dwelt in one of the Middle States a man whom 
we shall call Fauntleroy; a man of wealth, and magnif- 
icent tastes, and prodigal expenditure. His home might 
almost be styled a palace ; his habits, in the ordinary 
sense, princely. His whole being seemed to have crys- 
tallized itself into an external splendor, wherewith he 
glittered in the eyes of the world, and had no other life 
than upon this gaudy surface. He had married a lovely 
woman, whose nature was deeper than his own. But 
his affection for her, though it showed largely, was 
superficial, like all his other manifestations and devel- 
opments ; he did not so truly keep this noble creature in 
his heart, as wear her beauty for the most brilliant orna- 
ment of his outward state. And there was born to him 
a child, a beautiful daughter, whom he took from the 
beneficent hand of God with no just sense of her immor- 
tal value, but as a man already rich in gems would 
receive another jewel. If he loved her, it was because 
she shone. 

After Fauntleroy had thus spent a few empty years, 
corruscating continually an unnatural light, the source 
of it — which was merely his gold — began to grow 
more shallow, and finally became exhausted. He saw 
himself in imminent peril of losing all that had hereto- 


214 


THE BLITHE DALE ROMANCE. 


fore distinguished him ; and, conscious of no innatd 
worth to fall back upon, he recoiled from this calamity, 
with the instinct of a soul shrinking from annihilation. 
To avoid it — wretched man ! — or, rather to defer it, if 
but for a month, a day, or only to procure himself the 
life of a few breaths more amid the false glitter which 
was now less his own than ever, — he made himself 
guilty of a crime. It was just the sort of crime, growing 
out of its artificial state, which society (unless it should 
change its entire constitution for this man’s unworthy 
sake) neither could nor ought to pardon. More safely 
might it pardon murder. Fauntleroy’s guilt was dis- 
covered. He fled; his wife perished, by the necessity 
of her innate nobleness, in its alliance with a being so 
ignoble ; and betwixt her mother’s death and her father’s 
ignominy, his daughter was left worse than orphaned. 

There was no pursuit after Fauntleroy. His family 
connections, who had great wealth, made such arrange- 
ments with those whom he had attempted to wrong as 
secured him from the retribution that would have over- 
taken an unfriended criminal. The wreck of his estate 
was divided among his creditors. His name, in a very 
brief space, was forgotten by the multitude who had 
passed it so diligently from mouth to mouth. Seldom, 
indeed, was it recalled, even by his closest former inti- 
mates. Nor could it have been otherwise. The mail 
had laid no real touch on any mortal’s heart. Being a 
mere image, an optical delusion, created by the sunshine 
of prosperity, it was his law to vanish into the shadow 
of the first intervening cloud. He seemed to leave no 
vacancy ; a phenomenon which, like many otl ers that 


FAUNTLEROY. 


215 


attended, his brief career, went far to prove the illusive- 
ness of his existence. 

Not, however, that the physical substance of Fauntle- 
roy had literally melted into vapor. He had fled north- 
ward to the New England metropolis, and had taken 
up his abode, under another name, in a squalid street or 
court of the older portion of the city. There he dwelt 
among poverty-stricken wretches, sinners, and forlorn 
good people, Irish, and whomsoever else were neediest. 
Many families were clustered in each house together, 
above stairs and below, in the little peaked garrets, and 
pvon in the dusky cellars. The house where Fauntle- 
roy paid weekly rent for a chamber and a closet had 
been a stately habitation in its day. An old colonial 
governor had built it, and lived there, long ago, and held 
his levees in a great room where now slept twenty Irish 
bedfellows; and died in Fauntleroy’s chamber, which his 
embroidered and white-wigged ghost still haunted. Tat- 
tered hangings, a marble hearth, traversed with many 
cracks and fissures, a richly-carved oaken mantel-piece, 
partly hacked away for kindling-stufF, a stuccoed ceiling, 
defaced with great, unsightly patches of the naked 
laths, — such was the chamber’s aspect, as if, with its 
splinters and rags of dirty splendor, it were a kind of 
practical gibe at this poor, ruined man of show. 

At first, and at irregular intervals, his relatives 
allowed Fauntleroy a little pittance to sustain life ; not 
from any love, perhaps, but lest poverty should compel 
him, by new offences, to add more shame to that with 
vhich he had already stained them. But he showed no 
tendency to further guilt. His character appeared to 
have been radically changed (as, indeed, from its shallow 


216 


THE BLITHE DALE ROMANCE. 


ness, it well might) by his miserable fate ; or, it may be; 
the traits now seen in him were portions of the same 
character, presenting itself in another phase. Instead 
of any longer seeking to live in the sight of the world, 
his impulse was to shrink into the nearest obscurity, and 
to be unseen of men, were it possible, even while stand- 
ing before their eyes. He had no pride ; it was all trod- 
den in the dust. No ostentation ; for how could it sur- 
vive, when there was nothing left of Fauntleroy, save 
penury and shame ! His very gait demonstrated that 
he would gladly have faded out of view, and have crept 
about invisibly, for the sake of sheltering himself from 
the irksomeness of a human glance. Hardly, it was 
averred, within the memory of those who knew him 
now, had he the hardihood to show his full front to the 
world. He skulked in corners, and crept about in a 
sort of noon-day twilight, making himself gray and 
misty, at all hours, with his morbid intolerance of sun- 
shine. 

In his torpid despair, however, he had done an act 
which that condition of the spirit seems to prompt 
almost as often as prosperity and hope. Fauntleroy 
was again married. He had taken to wife a forlorn, 
meek-spirited, feeble young woman, a seamstress, whom 
he found dwelling with her mother in a contiguous 
chamber of the old gubernatorial residence. This poor 
phantom — as the beautiful and noble companion of his 
former life had done — brought him a daughter. Ana 
sometimes, as from one dream into another, Fauntleroy 
looked forth out of his present grimy environment into 
tW past magnificence, and wondered whether the 
grandee of yesterday or the pauper of to-day were real 


FAUNTLEROY. 


2r 


But, in my mind, the one and the other were alike 
impalpable. Tn truth, it was Fauntleroy’s fatality to 
behold whatever he touched dissolve. After a few 
years, his second wife (dim shadow that she had always 
been) faded finally out of the world, and left Fauntleroy 
to deal as he might with their pale and nervous child. 
And, by this time, among his distant relatives — with 
whom he had grown a weary thought, linked with 
contagious infamy, and which they were only too 
willing to get rid of — he was himself supposed to be no 
more. 

The younger child, like his elder one, might be con- 
sidered as the true offspring of both parents, and as the 
reflection of their state. She was a tremulous little 
creature, shrinking involuntarily from all mankind, but 
in timidity, and no sour repugnance. There was a 
lack of human substance in her ; it seemed as if, were 
she to stand up in a sunbeam, it would pass right 
through her figure, and trace out the cracked and 
dusty window-panes upon the naked floor. But, never- 
theless, the poor child had a heart; and from her 
mother’s gentle character she had inherited a profound 
and still capacity of affection. And so her life was one 
of love. She bestowed it partly on her father, but in 
greater part on an idea. 

For Fauntleroy, as they sat by their cheerless fire- 
side, — which was no fireside, in truth, but only a rusty 
stove, — had often talked to the little girl about his 
former wealth, the noble loveliness of his first wife, and 
the beautiful child whom she had given him. Instead 
of the fairy tales which other parents tell, he told Pris- 
cilla this And, out of the loneliness of her sad little* 


218 


THE BLITHEDALE ROMANCE 


existence, Priscilla’s love grew, and tended upwaii, and 
twined itself perseveringly around this unseen sister ; as 
a grape-vine might strive to clamber out of a gloomy 
hollow among the rocks, and embrace a young tree 
standing in the sunny warmth above. It was almost 
like worship, both in its earnestness and its humility , 
nor was it the less humble, — though the more earnest, — 
because Priscilla could claim human kindred with the 
being whom she so devoutly loved. As with worship, too, 
it gave her soul the refreshment of a purer atmosphere. 
Save for this singular, this melancholy, and yet beaut 
ful affection, the child could hardly have lived ; or, ha > 
she lived, with a heart shrunken for lack of any senti 
ment to fill it, she must have yielded to the barren 
miseries of her position, and have grown to womanhood 
characterless and worthless. But now, amid all the 
sombre coarseness of her father’s outward life, and of her 
own, Priscilla had a higher and imaginative life within. 
Some faint gleam thereof was often visible upon her 
face. It was as if, in her spiritual visits to her brilliant 
sister, a portion of the latter’s brightness had permeated 
our dim Priscilla, and still lingered, shedding a faint 
illumination through the cheerless chamber, after she 
came back. 

As the child grew up, so pallid and so slender, and 
with much unaccountable nervousness, and all the 
weaknesses of neglected infancy still haunting her, tho 
gross and simple neighbors whispered strange things 
about Priscilla. The big, red, Irish matrons, whose 
innumerable progeny swarmed out of the adjacent doors, 
used to mock at the pale, western child. They fancies 
or, at least, affirmed it. between jest and earnest — 


fauntleroy. 


21U 


mat she was not so solid flesh and blood as other :nil 
dren, but mixed largely with a thinner element. They 
called her ghost-child, and said that she could indeed 
vanish when she pleased, but could never, in hei 
densest moments, make herself quite visible. The sun, 
at mid-day, would shine through her ; in the first gray 
of the twilight, she lost all the distinctness of her out- 
line ; and, if you followed the dim thing into a dark 
corner, behold ! she was not there. And it was true 
that Piiscilla had strange ways; strange ways, and 
stranger words, when she uttered any words at all. 
Never stirring out of the old governor’s dusky house, she 
sometimes talked of distant places and splendid rooms, 
as if she had just left them. Hidden things were visi- 
ble to her (at least, so the people inferred from obscure 
hints escaping unawares out of her mouth), and silence 
was audible. And in all the world there w r as nothing 
so difficult to be endured, by those who had any dark 
secret to conceal, as the glance of Priscilla’s timid and 
melancholy eyes. 

Her peculiarities were the theme of continual gossip 
among the other inhabitants of the gubernatorial mansion. 
The rumor spread thence into a wider circle. Those 
who knew old Moodie, as he was now called, used often 
to jeer him, at the very street corners, about his daugh- 
ter’s gift of second sight and prophecy. It was a period 
when science (though mostly through its empirical pro- 
fessors) was bringing forward, anew, a hoard of facts 
and imperfect theories, that had partially won credence 
in elder times, but which modern scepticism had swept 
A way as rubbish. These things were now tossed up 
again, out of the surging ocean of human thought and 


220 


THE BLITHE DALE ROMANCE. 


experience. The story of Priscilla’s preternatural man 
ifestations, therefore, attracted a kind of notice of which 
it would have been deemed wholly unworthy a few 
years earlier. One day, a gentleman ascended the 
creaking staircase, and inquired which was old Moodie’s 
charuber-door. And, several times, he came again. He 
was a marvellously handsome man, — still youthful, too, 
and fashionably dressed. Except that Priscilla, in those 
days, had no beauty, and, in the languor of her exist- 
ence, had not yet blossomed into womanhood, there 
would have been rich food for scandal in these visits ; 
for the girl was unquestionably their sole object, although 
her father was supposed always to be present. But, it 
must likewise be added, there was something about 
Priscilla that calumny could not meddle with ; and thus 
far was she privileged, either by the preponderance of 
what was spiritual, or the thin and watery blood that 
A eft her cheek so pallid. 

Yet, if the busy tongues of the neighborhood spared 
Priscilla in one way, they made themselves amends by 
renewed and wilder babble on another score. They 
averred that the strange gentleman was a wizard, and 
that he had taken advantage of Priscilla’s lack of 
earthly substance to subject her to himself, as his famil- 
iar spirit, through whose medium he gained cognizance 
of whatever happened, in regions near or remote. The 
boundaries of his power were defined by me verge of the 
pit of Tartarus on the one hand, and the third sphere of 
the celestial world on the other. Again, they declared 
their suspicion that the wizard, with all his show of 
manly beauty, was really an aged and wizened figure, oi 
else that his semblance of a human body was only s 


FAUNTLEROY. 


221 


ni'cromanti'i, or perhaps a mechanical contrivance, in 
which a demon walked about. In proof of it, however, 
they could merely instance a gold band around his 
upper teeth, which had once been visible to several old 
women, when he smiled at them from the top of the gov- 
ernor’s staircase. Of course, this was all absurdity, or 
mostly so. But, after every possible deduction, there 
remained certain very mysterious points about the 
stranger’s character, as well as the connection that he 
established with Priscilla. Its nature at that period was 
even less understood than now, when miracles of this 
kind have grown so absolutely stale, that I would gladly, 
if the truth allowed, dismiss the whole matter from my 
narrative. 

We must now glance backward, in quest of the beau- 
tiful daughter of Fauntleroy’s prosperity. What had 
become of her? Fauntleroy’s only brother, a bachelor, 
and with no other relative so near, had adopted the for 
saken child. She grew up in affluence, with native 
graces clustering luxuriantly about her. In her triumph 
ant progress towards womanhood, she was adorned with 
every variety of feminine accomplishment. But she 
lacked a mother’s care. With no adequate control, on 
any hand (for a man, however stern, however wise, can 
never sway and guide a female child), her character was 
left to shape itself. There was good in it, and evil. Pas- 
sionate, self-willed and imperious, she had a warm and 
generous nature ; showing the richness of the soil, how- 
ever, chiefly by the weeds that flourished in it, and choked 
up the herbs of grace. In her girlhoo 1 her uncle died. 
As Fauntleroy was supposed to be ’likewise dead, and no 
othei heir was known to exist, his wealth devolved eo 


222 


THE BLITHE DALE ROMANCE. 


her, although , dying suddenly, the uncle left no will 
After his death, there were obscure passages in Zenobia’3 
history. There were whispers of an attachment, and 
even a secret marriage, with a fascinating and accom- 
plished but unprincipled young man. The incidents and 
appearances, however, which led to this surmise, soon 
passed away, and were forgotten. 

Nor was her reputation seriously affected by the report. 
In fact, so great was her native power and influence, and 
such seemed the careless purity of her nature, that what • 
ever Zenobia did was generally acknowledged as right 
for her to do. The world never criticized her so harshly 
as it does most women who transcend its rules. It 
almost yielded its assent, when it beheld her stepping out 
of the common path, and asserting the more extensive 
privileges of her sex, both theoretically and by her prac • 
tice. The sphere of ordinary womanhood was felt to 
be narrower than her development required. 

A portion of Zenobia’s more recent life is told in the 
foregoing pages. Partly in earnest — and, I imagine, as 
was her disposition, half in a proud jest, or in a kind of 
recklessness that had grown upon her, out of some 
hidden grief, — she had given her countenance, and 
promised liberal pecuniary aid, to our experiment of a 
better social state. And Priscilla followed her to Blithe- 
dale. The sole bliss of her life had been a dream of 
this beautiful sister, who had never so much as known 
of her existence. By this time, too, the poor girl was 
enthralled in an intolerable bondage, from which she 
must either free herself or perish. She deemed herself 
safest near Zenobia, intc whose large heart she hoped to 
nestie. 


FAUNTLEROY. 


223 


One evening, months after Priscilla’s departure, when 
Mocdie (or shall we call him Fauntleroy?) was sitting 
alon rt in the state-chamber of the old governor, there 
came lootsteps up the staircase. There was a pause on 
the landing-place. A lady’s musical yet haughty ac- 
cents were heard making an inquiry from some denizen 
of the hou*e, who had thrust a head out of a contiguous 
chamber. There was then a knock at Moodie’s door 

“ Come in ! ” said he. 

And Zenobia entered. The details of the interview 
that followed being unknown to me, — while, notwith 
standing, it would be a pity quite to lose the picturesque- 
ness of the situation, — I shall attempt to sketch it, 
mainly from fancy, although with some general grounds 
of surmise in regard to the old man’s feelings. 

She gazed wonderingly at the dismal chamber. Dis- 
mal to her, who beheld it only for an instant ; and how 
much more so to him, into whose brain each bare spot 
on the ceiling, every tatter of the paper-hangings, and 
all the splintered carvings of the mantel-piece, seen 
wearily through long years, had worn their several 
prints ! Inexpressibly miserable is this familiarity with 
objects that have been from the first disgustful. 

“ I have received a strange message,” said Zenobia, 
after a moment’s silence, “ requesting, or rather enjoining 
it upon me, to come hither. Rather from curiosity than 
any other motive, — and because, though a woman, I 
Lave not all the timidity of one, — I have complied. 
Can it be you, sir, who thus summoned me ? ” 

“ It was,” answered Moodie. 

“And what was your purpose?” she continued 
*Ygu require charity, perhaps? In that case, the mes* 


224 


THE BLITHEDALE ROMANCE. 


sage might have been more fitly worded. But you are 
old and jjoor, and age and poverty should be allowed 
their privileges. Tell me, therefore, to what extent you 
need my aid.” 

“ Put up your purse,” said the supposed mendicant, 
with an inexplicable smile. “ Keep it, — keep all your 
wealth, — until I demand it all, or none ! My message 
had no such end in view. You are beautiful, they tel! 
me ; and I desired to look at you.” 

He took the one lamp that showed the discomfort and 
sordidness of his abode, and approaching Zenobia, held 
it up, so as to gain the more perfect view of her, from 
top to toe. So obscure was the chamber, that you 
could see the reflection of her diamonds thrown upc*' 
the dingy wall, and flickering with the rise and fall of 
Zenobia’s breath. It was the splendor of those jewels 
on her neck, like lamps that burn before some fair tem- 
ple, and the jewelled flower in her hair, more than the 
murky, yellow light, that helped him to see her beauty 
But he beheld it, and grew proud at heart ; his own 
figure, in spite of his mean habiliments, assumed an air 
of state and grandeur. 

“ It is well,” cried old Moodie. “ Keep your wraith 
You are right worthy of it. Keep it, therefore but 
with one condition only.” 

Zenobia thought the old man beside himself, and was 
moved with pity. 

“ Have you none to care for you ? ” asked she. “ No 
daughter ? — no kind-hearted neighbor ? — no meai^s or 
procuring the attendance which you need? Tell 
once again, can I do nothing for you ? ” 

* Nothing,” he replied. *• I have beheld what < 


FAUNTLEROY. 


225 


wished. Now leave me. Linger not a moment longer, 
or I may be tempted to say what would bring a cloud 
over that queenly brow. Keep all your wealth, but with 
only this one condition : Be kind — be no less kind 
than .'isters are — to my poor Priscilla ! ” 

And, it may be, after Zenobia withdrew, Fauntlerov 
paced his gloomy chamber, and communed with himself 
us follows ; — or, at all events, it is the only solution 
which I can offer of the enigma presented in his char- 
acter : 

“ I am unchanged, — the same man as of yore ! ” 
said he. “ True, my brother’s wealth — he dying intes- 
tate — is legally my own. I know it ; yet, of my own 
choice, I live a beggar, and go meanly clad, and hide 
myself behind a forgotten ignominy. Looks this like 
ostentation? Ah! but in Zenobia I live again! Be- 
holding her, so beautiful, — so fit to be adorned with all 
imaginable splendor of outward state, — the cursed 
vanity, which, half a lifetime since, dropt off like tatters 
of once gaudy apparel from my debased and ruined per- 
son, is all renewed for her sake. Were 1 to reappear, 
my shame would go with me from darkness into day- 
A’ght. Zenobia has -the splendor, and not the shame. 
Let the world admire her, and be dazzled by her, the 
brilliant child of my prosperity! It is Fauntleroy that 
still shines through her ! ” 

But then, perhaps, another thought occurred to him. 

“ My poor Priscilla ! And am I just to her, in sur 
rendering all to this beautiful Zenobia? Priscilla! I 
love her best, — I love her only ! — but with shame, not 
pride. So dim, so pallid, so shrinking, — the daughtei 
of my long calamity ! Wealth were but a mockery in 
15 


226 


THE BLITHEDALE ROMANCE. 


Priscilla’s hands. What is its use, except to fling- a 
golden radiance arcund those who grasp it? Yet let 
Zenobia take heed ! Priscilla shall have no wrong } ” 
But, while the man of show thus meditated, — that 
very evening, so far as I can adjust the dates of these 
strange incidents, — Priscilla — poor, pallid flower ! — 
vi as either snatched from Zenobia’s hand, or flung wil- 
fully away ’ 


XXIII 

A VILLAGE-HALL. 

W ell, I betook myself away, and wanderec up and 
down, like ar„ exorcised spirit that had been driven from 
its old haunts after a mighty struggle. It takes down 
the solitary pride of man, beyond most other things, to 
find the impracticability of flinging aside affections that 
have grown irksome. The bands that were silken once 
are apt to become iron fetters when we desire to shake 
them off. Our souls, after all, are not our own. We 
convey a property in them to those with whom we 
associate ; but to what extent can never be known, until 
we feel the tug, the agony, of our abortive effort to 
resume an exclusive sway over ourselves. Thus, in all 
the weeks of my absence, my thoughts continually 
reverted back, brooding over the by-gone months, and 
bringing up incidents that seemed hardly to have left a 
trace of themselves in their passage. I spent painful 
hours in recalling these trifles, and rendering them more 
misty and unsubstantial than at first by the quantity of 
speculative musing thus kneaded in with them. Hollings- 
worth, Zenobia, Priscilla! These three had absorbed 
my life into themselves. Together with an inexpressible 
longing to know their fortunes, there was likewise a 
morbid resentment of my own pain, and a stubborn 
reluctance to come again within their sphere. 

All that I learned of them., therefore, was comprised 


228 


THE BLITIIEDALE ROMANCE. 


in a few brief and pungent squibs, such as the news- 
papers were then in the habit of bestowing oi oui 
socialist enterprise. There was one paragraph, which 
if I rightly guessed its purport, bore reference to Zenobia, 
but was too darkly hinted to convey even thus much of 
certainty. Hollingsworth, too, with his philanthropic 
project, afforded the penny-a-liners a theme for some 
savage and bloody-minded jokes ; and, considerably to 
my surprise, they affected me with as much indignatior 
as if we had still been friends. 

Thus passed sever? 1 weeks ; time long enough for my 
brown and toil-hardened hands to re accustom themselves 
to gloves. Old habits, such as were merely external, 
returned upon me with wonderful promptitude. My 
superficial talk, too, assumed altogether a worldly tone. 
Meeting former acquaintances, who showed themselves 
inclined to ridicule my heroic devotion to the cause of 
human welfare, I spoke of the recent phase of my life as 
indeed fair matter for a jest. But I also gave them to 
understand that it was, at most, only an experiment, on 
which I had staked no valuable amount of hope or fear. 
It had enabled me to pass the summer in a novel and 
agreeable way, had afforded me some grotesque speci- 
mens of artificial simplicity, and could not, therefore, so 
far as I was concerned, be reckoned a failure. In n<? 
one instance, however, did I voluntarily speak of my 
three friends. They dwelt in a profounder region. The 
more I consider myself as I then was, the more do 1 
recognize how deeply my connection with those three 
had affected all my being. 

As it was already the epoch of annihilated ,pace, i 
might, in the time I was away from Blithed; ^ hav* 


■A VILLAGE -HALL. 


229 


Bnatched a glimpse at England, and been back again* 
But my wanderings were confined within a very limited 
sphere. I hopped and fluttered, like a bird w ith a string 
about its leg, gyrating round a small circumference, and 
keeping up a restless activity to no purpose. Thus it 
was still in our familiar Massachusetts, — in one of its 
white country-villages, — that I must next particularize 
an incident 

The scene was one of those lyceum-halis, of which 
almost every village has now its own, dedicated to that 
sober and pallid, or rather drab-colored, mode of winter- 
evening entertainment, the lecture. Of late years, this 
has come strangely into vogue, when the natural tend- 
ency of things would seem to be to substitute lettered 
for oral methods of addressing the public. But, in halls 
like this, besides the winter course of lectures, there is a 
rich and varied series of other exhibitions. Hither 
comes the ventriloquist, with all his mysterious tongues ; 
the thaumaturgist, too, with his miraculous transforma- 
tions of plates, doves, and rings, his pancakes smoking 
in your hat, and his cellar of choice liquors represented 
in one small bottle. Here, also, the itinerant professor 
instructs separate classes of ladies and gentlemen in 
physiology, and demonstrates his lessons by the aid 
of real skeletons, and mannikins in wax, from Paris. 
Here is to be heard the choir of Ethiopian melodists, 
and to be seen the diorama of Moscow or Bunker Hill, 
or the moving panorama of the Chinese wall. Here is 
displayed the museum of wax figures, illustrating the 
wide Catholicism of earthly renown, by mixing up heroes 
and statesmen, the pope and the Mormon prophet, kings, 
queens, murderers, and beautiful ladies ; every sr rt of pet 


230 


THE BLITHEDALE ROMANCE. 


son, in short, except authors, of whom I never beheld 
even the most famous done in wax. And here, in this 
many-purposed hall (unless the selectmen of the village 
chance to have more than their share of the Puritanism 
which, however diversified with later patchwork, still 
gives its prevailing tint to New England character), here 
the company of strolling players sets up its little stage, 
and claims patronage for the legitimate drama. 

But, on the autumnal evening which I speak of, a 
number of printed handbills — stuck up in the bar-room, 
and on the sign-post of the hotel, and on the meeting- 
house porch, and distributed largely through the vil- 
lage — had promised the inhabitants an interview with 
that celebrated and hitherto inexplicable phenomenon, 
the Veiled Lady ! 

The hall was fitted up with an amphitheatrical descent 
of seats towards a platform, on which stood a desk, two 
lights, a stool, and a capacious antique chair. The au- 
dience was of a generally decent and respectable character: 
old farmers, in their Sunday black coats, with shrewd 
hard, sun-dried faces, and a cynical humor, oftener than 
any other expression, in their eyes ; pretty girls, in many- 
colored attire ; pretty young men, — the schoolmaster, 
the lawyer or student at law, the shopkeeper, — all 
looking rather suburban than rural. In these days, 
there is absolutely no rusticity, except when the actual 
labor of the soil leaves its earth-mould on the person. 
There was likewise a considerable proportion of young 
and middle-aged women, many of them stern in feature 
with marked foreheads, and a very definite line of eye- 
brow ; a type of womanhood in which a bold intellectua 
development seems to be keeping pace with the progress* 


A VILLAGE-HALL. 


231 


ive dc icacy of the physical constitution. Of all these 
people I took note, at first, according to my custom. 
But I ceased to do so the moment that my eyes fell on an 
individual who sat two or three seats below me, immov- 
able, apparently deep in thought, with his back, of course, 
towards me, and his face turned steadfastly upon the 
platform. 

After sitting a while in contemplation of this person’s 
familiar contour, 1 was irresistibly moved to step over 
the intervening benches, lay my hand on his shoulder, 
put my mouth close to his ear, and address him in a 
sepulchral, melo-dramatic whisper : 

“ Hollingsworth ! where have you left Zenobia ? ” 

His nerves, however, were proof against my attack. 
He turned half around, and looked me in the face with 
great, sad eyes, in which there was neither kindness nor 
resentment, nor any perceptible surprise. 

“ Zenobia, when I last saw her,” he answered, “ was 
at Blithedale.” 

He said no more. But there was a great deal of talk 
going on near me, among a knot of people who might 
be considered as representing the mysticism, or rather 
the mystic sensuality, of this singular age. The nature 
of the exhibition that was about to take place had prob- 
ably given the turn to their conversation. 

I heard, from a pale man in blue spectacles, some 
stranger stories than ever were written in a romance *, 
told, too, with a simple, unimaginative steadfastness, which 
was terribly efficacious in compelling the auditor to re- 
ceive them into the category of established facts. He cited 
instances of the miraculous power of one human being 
over the will and passions of another; insomuch that 


232 


THE BLITHEDALE ROMANCE. 


settled grief was but a shadow beneath the influence of 
a man possessing this potency, and the strong love of 
years melted away like a vapor. At the bidding of one 
of these wizards, the maiden, with her lover’s kiss still 
burning on her lips, would turn from him with icy indif- 
ference ; the newly-made widow would dig up her buried 
heart out of her young husband’s grave before the sods 
had taken root upon it ; a mother, with her babe’s milk in 
her bosom, would thrust away her child. Human char- 
acter was but soft w '.x in his hands ; and guilt, or virtue, 
only the forms inte *vhich he should see fit to mould it. 
The religious sei iment was a flame which he could 
blow up with his breath, or a spark that he could utterly 
extinguish. It is unutterable, the horror and disgust 
with which I listened, and saw that, if these things were 
to be believed, the individual soul was virtually annihi- 
lated, and all that is sweet and pure in our present life 
debased, and that the idea of man’s eternal responsibility 
was made ridiculous, and immortality rendered at once 
impossible, and not worth acceptance. But I would 
have perished on the spot, sooner than believe it. 

The epoch of rapping spirits, and all the wonders that 
have followed in their train, — such as tables upset by 
invisible agencies, bells self-tolled at funerals, and ghostly 
music performed on jewsharps, — had not yet arrived. 
Alas i".'/ countrymen, methinks we have fallen on an 
ey?. age If these phenomena have not humbug at the 
bottom, so much the worse for us. What can they in- 
dicate, in a spiritual way, except that the soul of man is 
descending to a lower point than it has ever before 
reached while incarnate? We are pursuing a down- 
ward course in the eternal march, and thus bring out 


A VILLAGE-HAI.L. 


2X1 

selves into ihe same range with beings whom death, in 
r**quital of iheir gross and evil lives, has degraded below 
humanity! To hold intercourse with spirits of this 
order, we must stoop and grovel in some element more 
vile than earthly dust. These goblins, if they exist at 
till, are but the shadows of past mortality, outcasts, mere 
refuse-stuff, adjudged unworthy of the eternal world, 
and, on the most favorable supposition, dwindling grad- 
ually into nothingness. The less we have to sav to 
them the better, lest we share their fate ! 

The audience now began to be impatient ; they signi- 
fied their desire for the entertainment to commence by 
thump of sticks and stamp of boot-heels. Nor was it a 
great while longer before, in response to their call, there 
appeared a b< irded personage in oriental robes, looking 
like one of the enchanters of the Arabian Nights. He 
came upon the platform from a side-door, saluted the 
spectators, not with a salaam, but a bow, took his station 
at the desk, and first blowing his nose with a white hand- 
kerchief, prepared to speak. The environment of the 
homely village-hall, and the absence of many ingenious 
contrivances of stage-effect with which the exhibition 
had heretofore been set off, seemed to bring the artifice 
of this character more openly upon the surface. No 
sooner did I behold the bearded enchanter, than, laying 
my hand again on Hollingsworth’s shoulder, I whispered 
in his ear, 

“ Do you know him ? ” 

“ 1 neve* saw the man before,” he muttered, without 
turning his head. 

But I had seen him three times already. Once, on 
occasion of my first visit to the Veiled Lady ; a second 


2IJ4 


1HE BLITHEDALE ROMANCE 


time, in the wood-path at Blithedale; and lastly, in 
7enobia’s drawing-room. It was Westervelt. A quick 
association of ideas made me shudder from hea 1 to foot * 
in 4 again, like an evil spirit, bringing up reminiscences 
of a man’s sins, I whispered a question in Hollings- 
wo th’s ear, — 

“ What have you done with Priscilla ? ” 

H ' gave a convulsive start, as if I had thrust a knife 
into him, writhed himself round on his seat, glared 
fiercei- into my eyes, but answered not a word. 

The Professor began his discourse, explanatory of the 
psychoh'gical phenomena, as he termed them, which it 
was his purpose to exhibit to the spectators. There 
remains i o very distinct impression of it on my mem- 
ory. It was eloquent, ingenious, plausible, with a delu- 
sive show c* spirituality, yet really imbued throughout 
with a cold urd dead materialism. I shivered, as at a 
current of chP air issuing out of a sepulchral vault, and 
bringing the suell of corruption along with it. He 
spoke of a new cm that was dawning upon the world ; 
an era that would hnk soul to soul, and the present life 
to what we call futurity, with a closeness that should 
finally convert both w orlds into one great, mutually con- 
scious brotherhood. Hi described (in a strange, philo- 
sophical guise, with tei rs of art, as if it were a matter 
of chemical discovery) th i agt-ncy by which this mighty 
result was to be effected ; no'" would it have surprised me, 
had he pretended to hold up a portion of his universally 
pervasive fluid, as he affirmed it to be, in a glass phial. 

At the close of his exordium . the Professor beckoned 
with hi? hand, — once, twice, thrice, — and a figure 
came gliding upon the platform, envelop d in i h>ug veil 
of silvery whiteness. It fell about her Pc* \i^ur« 


A VILT.AG E-HALL.. 


235 


ot a summer cloud, with a kind of vagueness, so that 
the outline of the form beneath it could not be accurately 
discerned. But the movement of the Veiled Lady \va3 
graceful, free and unembarrassed, like that of a person 
accustomed to be the spectacle of thousands ; or, possi- 
bly, a blindfold prisoner within the sphere with which 
this dark earthly magician had surrounded her, she was 
wholly unconscious of being the central object to all 
those straining eyes. 

Pliant to his gesture (which had even an obsequious 
courtesy, but at the same time a remarkable decisive- 
ness), the figure placed itself in the great chair. Sitting 
there, in such visible obscurity, it was perhaps as much 
like the actual presence of a disembodied spirit as any- 
thing that stage trickery could devise. The hushed 
breathing of the spectators proved how high-wrought 
were their anticipations of the wonders to be performed 
through the medium of this incomprehensible creature. 
I, too, was in breathless suspense, but with a far dif- 
ferent presentiment of some strange event at hand. 

“You see before you the Veiled Lady,” said the 
bearded Professor, advancing to the verge of the plat- 
form. “ By the agency of which I have just spoken, she 
is at this moment in communion with the spiritual 
world. That silvery veil is, in one sense, an enchant- 
ment, having been dipped, as it were, and essentially 
imbued, through the potency of my art, with the fluid 
medium of spirits. Slight and ethereal as it seems, the 
limitations of time and space have no existence within 
its folds. This hall — these hundreds of faces, encom- 
passing her within so narrow an amphitheatre — are of 
thinner substance, in her view, than the airiest vapor 
that the clouds are made of. She beholds the Absolute ,fi 


236 


THE BLITHEDALE ROMANCE. 


As preliminary to other and far more wonderful psy 
chological experiments, the exhibiter suggested that sorrn 
of his auditors should endeavor to make the Veiled Lady 
sensible of their presence by such methods — provided 
only no touch were laid upon her person — as they 
might deem best adapted to that end. Accordingly, 
several deep-lunged country-fellows, who looked as if 
they might have blown the apparition away with a breath 
ascended the platform. Mutually encouraging one 
another, they shouted so close to her ear that the veil 
stirred like a wreath of vanishing mist ; they smote 
upon the floor with bludgeons ; they perpetrated so 
hideous a clamor, that methought it might have reached, 
at least, a little way into the eternal sphere. Finally, 
with the assent of the Professor, they laid hold of the 
great chair, and were startled, apparently, to find it soar 
upward, as if lighter than the air through which it rose. 
But the Veiled Lady remained seated and motionless, 
with a composure that was hardly less than awful, 
because implying so immeasurable a distance betwixt her 
and these rude persecutors. 

“ These efforts are wholly without avail,” observed the 
Professor, who had been looking on with an aspect of 
serene indifference. “ The roar of a battery of cannon 
would be inaudible to the Veiled Lady. And yet, were 
I to will it, sitting in this very hall, she could hear the 
desert wind sweeping over the sands as far off as Arabia ; 
the icebergs grinding one against the other in the polar 
seas ; the rustle of a leaf in an East Indian forest ; the 
lowest whispered breath of the bashfulest maiden in the 
world, uttering the first confession of her love. Nor does 
there exist the moral inducement, apart from my own 


A VILLAGE -HALL. 


237 


bahest, thet could persuade her to lift the silvery veil, c" 
arise out of that chair.” 

Greatly to the Professor’s discomposure, however, just 
as he spoke these words, the Veiled Lady arose. There 
was a mysterious tremor that shook the magic veil. The 
spectators, it may be, imagined that she was about to 
take flight into that invisible sphere, and to the society 
of those purely spiritual beings with whom they reck- 
oned her so near akin. Hollingsworth, a moment ago, 
had mounted the platform, and now stood gazing at the 
figure, with a sad intentness that brought the whole 
power of his great, stern, yet tender soul into his glance. 

“ Come,” said he, waving his hand towards her. “ You 
are safe ! ” 

She threw off the veil, and stood before that multitude 
of people pale, tremulous, shrinking, as if only then had 
she discovered that a thousand eyes were gazing at hei. 
Poor maiden ! How strangely had she been betrayed ! 
Blazoned abroad as a wonder of the world, and perform 
mg what were adjudged as miracles, — in the faith ol 
many, a seeress and a prophetess ; in the haisher judg- 
ment of others, a mountebank, — she had kept, as 1 
religiously believe, her virgin reserve and sanctity of 
soul throughout it all. Within that encircling veil 
though an evil hand had flung it over her, there was as 
deep a seclusion as if this forsaken girl had, all the 
while, been sitting under the shadow of Eliot’s pulpit, 
in the Blithedale woods, at the feet of him who now 
summoned her to the shelter of his arms. And the true 
heart-throb of a woman’s affection was too powerful for 
th;? jugglery that had hitherto environed her. She 
uttered a shriek, and fled to Hollingsworth, like one 
escaping from her deadliest enemy, and was safe forever 


XXIV. 

THE MASQUERADERS. 

Two nights had passed since the foregoing occur* 
rences, when, in a breezy September forenoon, I set forth 
from town, on foot, towards Blithedale. 

It was the most delightful of all days for a walk, with 
a dash of invigorating ice-temper in the air, but a cool- 
ness that soon gave place to the brisk glow of exercise, 
while the vigor remained as elastic as before. The 
atmosphere had a spirit and sparkle in it. Each breath 
was like a sip of ethereal wine, tempered, as I said, with 
a crystal lump of ice. I had started on this expedition 
in an exceedingly sombre mood, as well befitted one who 
found himself tending towards home, but was conscious 
that nobody would be quite overjoyed to greet him 
there. My feet were hardly off the pavement, however, 
when this morbid sensation began to yield to the lively 
influences of air and motion. Nor had I gone far, with 
fields yet green on either side, before my step became 
as swift and light as if Hollingsworth were waiting 
to exchange a friendly hand-grip, and Zenobia’s and 
Priscilla’s open arms would welcome the wanderer’s re- 
appearance. It has happened to me, on other occasions, 
as well as this, to prove how a state of physical well- 
being can create a kind of joy, in spite of the profoundesi 
anxiety of mind. 

The pathway of that walk still runs along, with sumij 


THE MASQUERADERS. 


239 


freshness through my memory. I know not why it 
should he so. But my mental eye can even now dis- 
cern the September gmss, bordering the pleasant road- 
side with a brighter verdure than while the summer 
heats were scorching it ; the trees, too, mostly green, 
although here and there a branch or shrub has donned 
its vesture of crimson and gold a week or two before its 
fellows. I see the tufted barberry-bushes, with their 
small clusters of scarlet fruit ; the toadstools, likewise, — 
some spotlessly white, others yellow or red, — mysterious 
growths, springing suddenly from no root or seed, and 
growing nobody can tell how or wherefore. In this re- 
spect they resembled many of the emotions in my breast. 
And I still see the little rivulets, chill, clear and bright, 
that murmured beneath the road, through subterranean 
rocks, and deepened into mossy pools, where tiny fish 
were darting to and fro, and within which lurked the 
hermit-frog. But no, — I never can account for it, 
that, with a yearning interest to learn the upshot of all 
my story, and returning to Blithedale for that sole pur- 
pose, I should examine these things so like a peaceful- 
bosomed naturalist. Nor why, amid all my sympathies 
and fears, there shot, at times, a wild exhilaration 
through my frame. 

Thus I pursued my way along the line of the ancient 
stone wall that Paul Dudley built, and through white 
villages, and past orchards of ruddy apples, and fields of 
ripening maize, and patches of woodland, and all such 
sweet rural scenery as looks the fairest, a little beyond 
the suburbs of a town. Hollingsworth, Zenobia, Pris- 
cilla ! They glided mistily before me, as I walked. 
Sometimes, in my solitude, I laughed with the bitterness 


240 


THE BLITHEDALE ROMANCE. 


of self -scorn, remembering how unreservedly I had given 
up my heart and soul to interests that were not mine. 
What had I ever had to do with them? And why, 
being now free, should I take this thraldom on me once 
again ? It was both sad and dangerous, 1 whispered to 
myself, to be in too close affinity with the passions, the 
errors and the misfortunes, of individuals who stood 
within a circle of their own, into which, if I stept at all, 
it must be as an intruder, and at a peril that I could not 
estimate. 

Drawing nearer to Blithedale, a sickness of the spirits 
kept alternating with my flights of causeless buoyancy. 
I indulged in a hundred odd and extravagant conjectures. 
Either there was no such place as Blithedale, nor ever 
had been, nor any brotherhood of thoughtful laborers 
like what I seemed to recollect there, or else it was all 
changed during my absence. It had been nothing but 
dream-work and enchantment. I should seek in vain 
for the old farm-house, and for the green-sward, the 
potato-fields, the root-crops, and acres of Indian com, 
and for all that configuration of the land which I had 
imagined. It would be another spot, and an utter 
strangeness. 

These vagaries were of the spectral throng so apt to 
steal out of an unquiet heart. They partly ceased to 
haunt me, on my arriving at a point whence, through 
the trees, I began to catch glimpses of the Blithedale 
farm. That surely was something real. There was 
hardly a square foot of all those acres on which I had 
not trodden heavily, in one or another kind of toil. The 
curse of Adam’s posterity — and, curse or blessing be it, 
i* gives substance to the life around us — had first come 


THE MASQUERADERS. 


241 


upon me there. Id the sweat of my brow Iliad there 
earned bread and eaten it, and so established my claim 
to be on earth, and my fellowship with all the sons of 
labor. I could have knelt down, and have laid my 
breast against that soil. The red clay of which my 
frame was moulded seemed nearer akin to those crum- 
bling furrows than to any other portion of the world’s 
dust. There was my home, and there might be mv 
grave. 

I felt an invincible reluctance, nevertheless, at the 
idea of presenting myself before my old associates, with- 
out first ascertaining the state in which they were. A 
nameless foreboding weighed upon me. Perhaps, should 
I know all the circumstances that had occurred, I might 
find it my wisest course to turn back, unrecognized, un- 
seen, and never look at Blithedale more. Had it been 
evening, 1 would have stolen softly to some lighted win- 
dow of the old farm-house, and peeped darkling in, to see 
all their well-known faces round the supper-board. Then, 
were there a vacant seat, I might noiselessly unclose the 
door, glide in, and take my place among them, without 
a word. My entrance might be so quiet, my aspect so 
familiar, that they would forget how long I had been 
away, and suffer me to melt into the scene, as a wreath 
of vapor melts into a larger cloud. I dreaded a bois- 
terous greeting. Beholding me at table, Zenobia, as a 
matter of course, would send me a cup of tea, and Hol- 
lingsworth fill my plate from the great dish of pan- 
dowdy, and Priscilla, in her quiet way, would hand the 
cream, and others help me to the bread and butter. Be- 
ing one of them again, the knowledge of what had hap- 
pene i would come to me without a shock. For stiP, at 
16 


242 


THE BLITHEDALE R0J\LuNCb. 


every turn of my shifting fantasies, the thought sfe-n;* 1 
me in the face that some evil thing had befallen us, ur 
was ready to befall. 

Yielding to this ominous impression, I now turned 
aside into the woods, resolving to spy out the posture of 
the Community, as craftily as the wild Indian before he 
makes his onset. I would go wandering about the out- 
skirts of the farm, and, perhaps, catching sight cf a soli- 
tary acquaintance, would approach him amid the brown 
shadows of the trees (a kind of medium fit for spirits 
departed and revisitant, like myself), and entreat him tc 
teL me how all things were. 

The first living creature that I met was a partridge 
which sprung up beneath my feet, and whirred away ; 
the next was a squirrel, who chattered angrily at me 
from an overhanging bough. I trod along by the dark, 
sluggish river, and remember pausing on the bank, above 
one of its blackest and most placid pools — (the very spot, 
with the barkless stump of a tree aslantwise over the 
water, is depicting itself to my fancy at this instant),— 
and wondering how deep it was, and if any over-laden 
soul had ever flung its weight of mortality in thither, 
and if it thus escaped the burthen, or only made it 
heavier. And perhaps the skeleton of the diowned 
wretch still lay beneath the inscrutable depth, clinging 
to some sunken log at the bottom with the gripe of its 
oil despair. So slight, however, was the track of these 
gloomy ideas, that I soon forgot them in the contempla- 
tion of a brood of wild ducks, which were floating ou 
the river, and anon took flight, leaving each a bright 
streak over the black surface. By and by, I came to my 
hermitage, in the Inart of the white-pine tree and clan* 


THE MASQUERADERS. 


243 


be ring up into it, sat down to rest. The grapes which 1 
had watched throughout the summer, now dangled around 
me in abundant clusters of the deepest purple, deliciously 
sweet to the taste, and, though wild, yet free from that 
ungentle flavor which distinguishes nearly all our native 
and uncultivated grapes. Methought a wine might be 
pressed out of them possessing a passionate zest, and 
endowed with a new kind of intoxicating quality, at- 
tended with such bacchanalian ecstacies as the tamer 
grapes of Madeira, France, and the Rhine, are inade- 
quate to produce. And I longed to quaff a great goblet 
of it at that moment ! 

While devouring the grapes, I looked on all sides out 
of the peep-holes of my hermitage, and saw the farm- 
house, the fields, and almost every part of our domain, 
but not a single human figure in the landscape. Some 
of the windows of the house were open, but with no 
more signs of life than in a dead man’s unshut eyes. 
The barn-door was ajar, and swinging in the breeze. 
The big old dog, — he was a relic of the former dynasty 
of the farm, — that hardly ever stirred out of the yard, 
was nowhere to be seen. What, then, had become of 
all tne fraternity and sisterhood ? Curious to ascertain 
this point, I let myself down out of the tree, and going 
to the edge of the wood, was glad to perceive our herd 
of cows chewing the cud or grazing not far off. I fan- 
cied, by their manner, that two or three of them recog- 
nized me (as, indeed, they ought, for I had milked them 
and been their chamberlain times without number) ; but, 
after staring me in the face a little while, they phleg- 
matically began grazing and chewing their cuds again. 
Then I grew foolishly angry at so cold a recepti m, and 


244 


THE BLITHEDALE ROMANCE. 


flung some rotten fragments of an old stump at these 
unsentimental cows. 

Skirting further round the pasture, I heard voices and 
much laughter proceeding from the interior of the wood. 
Voices, male and feminine ; laughter, not only of fresh 
young throats, but the bass of grown people, as if solemn 
organ-pipes should pour out airs of merriment. Not a 
voice spoke, but I knew it better than my own ; not a 
laugh, but its cadences were familiar. The wood, in 
this portion of it, seemed as full of jollity as if Comus 
and his crew were holding their revels in one of its usu- 
ally lonesome glades. Stealing onward as far as I durst, 
without hazard of discovery, I saw a concourse of strange 
figures beneath the overshadowing branches. They ap- 
peared, and vanished, and came again, confusedly, with 
the streaks of sunlight glimmering down upon them. 

Among them was an Indian chief, with blanket, feath- 
ers and war-paint, and uplifted tomahawk ; and near 
him, looking fit to be his woodland-bride, the goddess 
Diana, with the crescent on her head, and attended by 
our big lazy dog, in lack of any fleeter hound. Draw- 
ing an arrow from her quiver, she let it fly at a venture, 
and hit the very tree behind which I happened to be lurk- 
ing. Another group consisted of a Bavarian broom-girl, 
a negro of the Jim Crow order, one or two foresters of 
the middle ages, a Kentucky woodsman in his trimmed 
hunting-shirt and deerskin leggings, and a Shaker elder, 
quaint, demure, broad -brimmed, and square-skirted. 
Shepherds of Arcadia, and allegoric figures from the 
Faerie Queen, were oddly mixed up with these. Arm 
in arm, or otherwise huddled together in strange dis- 
crepancy, stood grim Puritans, gay Cavaliers, and Re*> 


-HE MASQUERADERS. 


245 


rtfcArfiuiy' officers with th.**/;<«#iiieicd cocked hats, and 
queues longer than their swords. A bright-complex* 
wned. dark-haired, vivacious little gypsy, with a red 
shawl over her head, went from one group to another 
telling fortunes by palmistry; and Moll Pitcher, the 
renowned old witch of Lynn, broomstick in hand, showed 
herself prominently in the midst, as if announcing all 
these apparitions to be the offspring of her necromantic 
art. But Silas Foster, who leaned against a tree near 
by, in his customary blue frock, and smoking a short 
pipe, did more to disenchant the scene, with his look of 
shrewd, acrid, Yankee observation, than twenty witches 
and necromancers could have done in the way of ren- 
dering it weird and fantastic. 

A little further off, some old-fashioned skinkers and 
drawers, all with portentously red noses, were spread- 
ing a banquet on the leaf-strewn earth ; while a horned 
and long-tailed gentleman (in whom I recognized the 
fiendish musician erst seen by Tam O’Shanter) tuned 
his fiddle, and summoned the whole motley rout to a 
dance, before partaking of the festal cheer. So they 
joined hands in a circle, whirling round so swiftly, so 
madly, and so merrily, in time and tune with the Sa- 
tanic music, that their separate incongruities were 
olended all together, and they became a kind of en- 
tanglement that went nigh to turn one’s brain with 
merely looking at it. Anon they stopt all of a sudden, 
and staring at one another’s figures, set up a roar of 
laughter; whereat a shower of the September leaves 
(which, all day long, had been hesitating whether to fall 
or no) were shaken off by the movement of the air, ind 
came eddying down upon the revellers 


246 


THE BLITHEDALE ROMANCE. 


Then, for lack of breath, ensued a silence ; at the 
deepest point of which, tickled by the oddity of surprising 
my grave associates in this masquerading trim, I could 
not possibly refrain from a burst of laughter on my own 
separate account 

“ Hush ! ” I heard the pretty gypsy fortune-teller say 
“ Who is that laughing ?” 

“ Some profane intruder ! ” said the goddess Diana. 
“I shall send an arrow through his heart, or change him 
into a stag, as I did Actason , .{ he peeps from behind the 
trees ! ” 

“ Me take his scalp ! ” cried the Indian chief, brandish- 
ing his tomahawk, and cutting a great caper in the air. 

“ I ’U root him in the earth with a spell that I halt* 
at my tongue’s end ! ” squeaked Moll Pitcher. “And the 
green moss skill grow all over him, before he gets free 
again ! ” 

“ The voice was Miles Coverdale’s,” said the fiendish 
fiddler, with a whisk of his tail and a toss of his horns. 
“My music has brought him hither. He is always 
ready to dance to the devil’s tune ! ” 

Thus put on the right track, they all recognized the 
voice at once, and set up a simultaneous shout. 

“ Miles ! Miles ! Miles Coverdale, where are you ?” 
they :ried. “ Zenobia ! Queen Zenobia ! here is one of 
your vassals lurking in the wood. Command him to 
approach, and pay his duty ! ” 

The whole fantastic rabble forthwith streamed off :ri 
pursuit of me, so that I was like a mad poet hunted by 
chimeras. Having fairly the start of them, however, i 
succeeded in making my escape, and soon left theif 
merriment and riot at a good distance in the rear, its 


THE MASQUERADERS. 


247 


fainter tones assumed a kind of mournfulness, and w ‘re 
finally lost in the hush and solemnity of the wood. In 
my haste, I stumbled over a heap of logs and sticks that 
had been cut for fire-wood, a great while ago, by some 
former possessor of the soil, and piled up square, in 
order to be carted or sledu^d away to the farm-house. 
But, being forgotten, they had lain there peihaps fifty 
years, and possibly much longer ; until, by the accumu- 
lation of moss, and the leaves falling over them and 
decaying there, from autumn to autumn, a green mound 
was formed, in which the softened outline of the wood- 
pile was siill perceptible. In the fitful mood that then 
swayed my mind, I found something strangely affecting 
in this simple circumstance. I imagined the long-dead 
woodman, and his long-dead wife and children, coming 
out of their chill graves, and essaying to make a fire with 
this heap of mossy fuel ! 

From this spot I strayed onward, quite lost in reverie, 
and neither knew nor cared whither I was going, until 
a low, soft, well-remembered voice spoke, at a little 
distance. 

“ There is Mr. Coverdale ! ” 

“ Miles Coverdale ! ” said another voice, — and its 
tones were very stern. “Let him come forward, then!” 

“Yes, Mr. Coverdale,” cried a woman’s voice, — clear 
and melodious, but, just then, with something unnatural 
in its chord, — “ you are welcome ! But you come half 
an hour too late, and have missed a scene which you 
would have enjoyed ! ” 

I looked up, and found myself nigh Eliot’s pulpit, at 
the base of which sat Hollingsworth, with Priscilla at 
his f eet, and Zenobia standing before them. 


XXV. 

THE THREE TOGETHER. 

Hollingsworth was in his ordinary working-dress. 
Priscilla wore a pretty and simple gown, with a kerchief 
about her neck, and a calash, which she had flung back 
from her head, leaving it suspended by the strings. 
But Zenobia (whose part among the maskers, as may 
be supposed, was no inferior one) appeared in a costume 
of fanciful magnificence, with her jewelled flower as the 
central ornament of what resembled a leafy crown, or 
coronet. She represented the oriental princess by 
whose name we were accustomed to know her. Her 
attitude was free and noble ; yet, if a queen’s, it was not 
that of a queen triumphant, but dethroned, on trial for 
her life, or, perchance, condemned, already. The spirit 
of the conflict seemed, nevertheless, to be alive in her. 
Her eyes were on fire ; her cheeks had each a crimson 
spot, so exceedingly vivid, and marked with so definite 
an outline, that I at first doubted whether it were not 
artificial. In a very brief space, however, this idea was 
shamed by the paleness that ensued, as the blood sunk 
suddenly away. Zenobia now looked like marble. 

One always feels the fact, in an instant, when he has 
intruded on those who love, or those who hate, at some 
acme of their passion that puts them into a sphere of 
their own, where no other spirit can pretend to stand on 
equal ground with them, i was confused, — affected 


THE THREE TOGETHER. 


249 


even with a species of terror, — and wished myself away 
The intentness of their feelings gave them the exclusive 
property of the soil and atmosphere, and left me no right 
to be or breathe there. 

“Hollingsworth, — Zenobia, — I have just returned 
to Blithedale,” said I, “ and had no thought of finding 
you here. We shall meet again al the house. I will 
retire.” 

“ This place is free to you,” answered Hollingsworth. 

“As free as to ourselves,” added Zenobia. “This 
long while past, you have been following up your game, 
groping for human emotions in the dark corners of the 
heart. Had you been here a little sooner, you might 
have seen them dragged into the daylight. I could 
even wish to have my trial over again, with you stand- 
* lg by to see fair play ! Do you know, Mr. Coverdale, 
j. have been on trial for my life ? ” 

She laughed, while speaking thus. But, in truth, as 
my eyes wandered from one of the group to another, I 
saw in Hollingsworth all that an artist could desire for 
the grim portrait of a Puritan magistrate holding inquest 
of life and death in a case of witchcraft ; — in Zenobia, 
the sorceress herself, not aged, wrinkled and decrepit, but 
fair enough to tempt Satan with a force reciprocal to his 
own ; — and, in Priscilla, the pale victim, whose scul 
and body had been wasted by her spells. Had a pile 
of fagots been heaped against the rock, this hint of 
impending doom would have completed the suggestive 
picture. 

“ It was too hard upon me,” continued Zenobia, ad- 
dressing Hollingsworth, “ th it judge, jury and accuser, 
sh'.uld all lie comprehendel in one man ' l demur, n 


250 


THE BLITHE DALE ROMANCE. 


I thkik the lawyers say, to the jurisdiction. But let the 
learned Judge Coverdale seat himself on the top of the 
rock, and you and me stand at its base, side by side 
pleading our cause before him ! There might, at least, 
be two criminals, instead of one.” 

“ You forced this on me,” replied Hollingsworth 
looking her sternly in the face. “ Did I call you hither 
from among the masqueraders yonder ? Do I assume to 
be your judge? No; except so far as I have an unques- 
tionable right of judgment, in order to settle my own 
line of behavior towards those with whom the events of 
life bring me in contact. True, I have already judged 
you, but not on the world’s part, — neither do I pretend 
to pass a sentence ! ” 

“ Ah, this is very good !” said Zenobia, with a smile. 
“ What strange beings you men are, Mr. Coverdale ! — 
is it not so ? It is the simplest thing in the world with 
you to bring a woman before your secret tribunals, and 
judge and condemn her unheard, and then tell her to 
go free without a sentence. The misfortune is, that this 
same secret tribunal chances to be the only judgment- 
seat that a true woman stands in awe of, and that 
any verdict short of acquittal is equivalent to a death- 
sentence ! ” 

The more I looked at them, and the more I heard, the 
stronger grew my impression that a crisis had just come 
and gone. On Hollingsworth’s brow it had left a stamp 
jke that of irrevocable doom, of which his own will was 
the instrument. In Zenobia’s whole person, beholding 
her more closely, I saw a riotous agitation ; the almost 
delirious disquietude of a great struggle, at the cltse jf 
which the vaniqi ished one felt her strength and courage 


THF. THREE TOGETHER. 


25\ 


sill, mighty within her, and longed to renew the contest 
My sensations were as if I had come upon a battle-field 
before the smoke was as yet cleared away . 

And what subjects had been discussed here ? All, no 
doubt, that for so many months past had kept my heart 
and my imagination idly feverish. Zenobia’s whole 
character and history; the true nature of her mys- 
terious connection with Westervelt; her later purposes 
towards Hollingsworth, and, reciprocally, his in refer- 
ence to her ; and, finally, the degree in which Zenobia 
had been cognizant of the plot against Priscilla, and 
what, at last, had been the real object of that scheme. 
On these points, as before, I was left to my own conjec- 
tures. One thing, only, was certain. Zenobia and Hol- 
lingsworth were friends no longer. If their heart-strings 
were ever intertwined, the knot had been adjudged an 
entanglement, and was now violently broken. 

But Zenobia seemed unable to rest content with the 
matter in the posture which it had assumed. 

“ Ah ! do we part so ? ” exclaimed she, seeing Hol- 
lingsworth about to retire. 

“ And why not ? ” said he, with almost rude abrupt- 
ness. “ What is there further to be said between uj ? ” 

“Well, perhaps nothing,” answered Zenobia, looking 
him in the face, and smiling. “ But we have come, 
many times before, to this gray rock, and we have talked 
very softly among the whisperings of the birch-trees. 
They were pleasant hours ! I love to make the latest 
of them, though not altogether so delightful, loiter away 
as slowly as may be. And, besides, you have put many 
queries to me at this, which you design to be our last, 
interview ; and being driven, as I must acknowledge, 


352 


THE BLITHE HALE ROMANCE. 


into a corner, I have responded with reasonable frank 
aess. But, now, with your free consent, I desire the 
privilege of asking a few questions, in my turn.” 

“ I have no concealments,” said Hollingsworth. 

“We shall see,” answered Zenobia. “1 would first 
inquire whether you have supposed me to be wealthy 2 ” 
“On that point,” observed Hollingsworth, “I have 
had the opinion which the world holds.” 

“ And I held it, likewise,” said Zenobia. “ Had 1 
not, Heaven is my witness, the knowledge should have 
been as free to you as me. It is only three days since j 
knew the strange fact that threatens to make me poor; 
and your own acquaintance with it, I suspect, is of at 
least as old a date. I fancied myself affluent. You are 
aware, too, of the disposition which I purposed making 
of the larger portion of my imaginary opulence ; — nay, 
were it all, I had not hesitated. Let me ask you, fur- 
ther, did I ever propose or intimate any terms of com- 
pact, on which depended this — as the world would con- 
sider it — so important sacrifice ? ” 

“ You certainly spoke of none,” said Hollingsworth. 

“ Nor meant any,” she responded. “ I was willing to 
realize your dream, freely, — generously, as some might 
think, — but, at all events, fully, and heedless though it 
should prove the ruin of my fortune. If, in your own 
thoughts, you have imposed any conditions of this ex 
penditure, it is you that must be held responsible foi 
whatever is sordid and unworthy in them. And now 
one other question. Do you love this girl ? ” 

“ O, Zenobia ! ” exclaimed Priscilla, shrinking back 
us if longing for the rock to topple over and hide her 
“ Do you love her ? ” repeated Zenobia 


THE TFREE TOGETHER. 


2hJ 


“ Had you asked mo chat question a short time since/' 
Replied Hollingsworth, after a pause, during which, it 
seemed to me, even the birch-trees held their whispering 
breath, “ I should have told you — ‘ No ! ’ My feelings 
for Priscilla differed little from those of an elder brother, 
watching tenderly over the gentle sister whom Gd has 
given him to protect.” 

“ And what is your answer now ? ” persisted Zenobia. 
“ J do love her ! ” said Hollingsworth, uttering the 
words with a deep inward breath, instead of speaking 
them outright. “As well declare it thus as in an/ 
other way. I do love her ! ” 

“Now, God be judge between us,” cried Zenobia 
breaking into sudden passion, “ which of us two has most 
mortally offended him ! At least, I am a woman, with 
every mult, it may be, that a woman ever had, — weak 
vam, unprincipled (like most of my sex ; for our virtues, 
when we have any, are merely impulsive and intuitive) 
passionate, too, and pursuing my foolish and unattain- 
able ends by indirect and cunning, though absurdly 
chosen means, as an hereditary bond-slave must ; false, 
moreover, to the whole circle of good, in my reckless 
truth to the little good I saw before me, — but still a 
woman! A creature whom only a little change of 
earthly fortune, a little kinder smile of Him who sent 
me hither, and one true heart to encourage and direct 
me, might have made all that a woman can be ! But 
how is it with you? Are you a man? No, but a 
monster ! A cold, heartless, self-beginning and self- 
ending piece of mechanism ! ” 

“ With what, then, do you charge me ? ” asked Hoi 
lingsworth, aghast and greatly disturbed by this attack 


254 


THE BLITHEDALE ROMANCE. 


“ Show me one selfish end, in all I ever aimed at, and 
you may cut it out of my bosom with a knife ! ” 

‘ It is all self!” answered Zenobia, with still intensei 
bitterness. “ Nothing else ; nothing but self, self, self! 
The fiend, 1 loubt not, has made his choicest mirth of 
you, these seven years past, and especially in the mad 
summer which we have spent together. I see it now 1 
I am awake, disenchanted, disenthralled! Self, self, 
self! You have embodied yourself in a project. You 
are a better masquerader than the witches and gypsies 
yonder ; for your disguise is a self-deception. See 
whither it has brought you ! First, you aimed a death- 
blow, and a treacherous one, at this scheme of a purer 
and higher life, which so many noble spirits had wrought 
out. Then, because Coverdale could not be quite your 
slave, you threw him ruthlessly away. And you took 
me, too, into your plan, as long as there was hope of my 
being available, and now fling me aside again, a broken 
tool ! But, foremost and blackest of your sins, you 
stifled down your inmost consciousness ! — you did it 
deadly wrong to your own heart ! — you were ready to 
sacrifice this girl, whom, if God ever visibly showed a 
purpose, he put into your charge, and through whom he 
was striving to redeem you ! ” 

“ This is a woman’s view,” said Hollingsworth, grow- 
ing deadly pale>, — “a woman’s, whose whole sphere of 
action is in the heart, and who can conceive of no higher 
nor wider one ! ” 

“Be silent!” cried Zenobir imperiously. “You 
Jmi uv neither man nor woman! The utmost that ran 
be said in your behalf, — and because I would not be 
wholly lespbable in my own eyes, but would fa n 


THE THREE TOGETHER. 


255 


2xcuse my wasted feelings, nor own it wholly a delu- 
sion, thereiore I say it, — is, that a great and rich heart 
has been ruined in your breast. Leave me, now. You 
have done with me, and I with you. Farewell ! ” 

“PrisciHa,” said Hollingsworth, “come.” 

Zenobia smiled; possibly I did so too. Not often, 
m human life, has a gnawing sense of injury found 
a sweeter morsel of revenge than was conveyed in 
the tone with wh : ch Hollingsworth spoke those two 
words. It was the abased and tremulous tone of a man 
whose faith in himself was shaken, and who sought, at 
last, to lean on an affection. Yes; the strong man 
bowed himself, and rested on this poor Priscilla ! O ! 
could she have failed him, what a triumph for the 
lookers-on ! 

And, at first, I half imagined that she was about to 
fail him. She rose up, stood shivering like the birch- 
leaves that trembled over her head, and then slowly 
tottered, rather than walked, towards Zenobia. Arriving 
at her feet, she sark down there, in the very same atti- 
tude which she had assumed on their first meeting, in 
the kitchen of the old farm-house. Zenobia remem- 
bered it. 

“ Ah, Priscilla ! ” said she, shaking her head, “ how 
much is changed since then ! You kneel to a dethroned 
princess You, the victorious one! But he is waiting 
for you. Say what you wish, and leave me.” 

“We are sisters ! ” gasped Priscilla. 

I fancied that I understood the word and action. It 
*ieant tne offering of herself, and all she had, to be at 
Zenobia’s disposal. But the latter woild 1 ct take u 
thus 


?/>6 THE BLITHE DALE ROMANCE. 

“ True, wc are sisters !” she replied ; and, moved by 
the sweet word, she stooped down and kissed Priscilla 
but not lovingly, for a sense of fatal harm received 
through her seemed to be lurking in Zenobia’s heart. 
“We had one father! You knew it from the first; I, 
but a little while — else some things that have chanced 
might have been spared you. But I never wished you 
harm. You stood between me and an end which 1 
desired. 1 wanted a clear path. No matter what * 
meant. It is over now. Do you forgive me ? ” 

“ O, Zenobia,” sobbed Priscilla, “ it is I that feel like 
the guilty one ! ” 

“ No, no, poor little thing ! ” said Zenobia, with a sort 
of contempt. “You have been my evil fate ; but there 
never was a babe with less strength or will to do an 
injury. Poor child ! Methinks you have but a melan- 
choly lot before you, sitting all alone in that wide, 
cheerless heart, where, for aught you know, — and as I, 
alas ! believe, — the fire which you have kindled may 
soon go out. Ah, the thought makes me shiver for you ! 
What will you do, Priscilla, when you find no spark 
among the ashes ? ” 

“ Die ! ” she answered. 

“ That was well said ! ” responded Zenobia, with an 
approving smile. “ There is all a woman in your little 
compass, my poor sister. Meanwhile, go ,vith him, and 
live ! ” 

She waved her away, with a queenl/- gesture, and 
turned her own face to the rock. I watched Priscilla, 
wondering what judgment she would pass between 
Zenobia and Hollingsworth ; how interpret his behavior, 
so as to reconcile it with true faith both towards hei 


THE THREE TOGETHER. 


251 


•sister and herself; how compel her love for him to keep 
any terms whatever with her sisterly affection ! But, in 
truth, theie was no sucn difficulty as I imagined. Her 
engrossing love made it all clear. Hollingsworth could 
have no fault. That was the one principle at the centre 
f the universe. And the doubtful guilt or possible 
integrity of other people, appearances, self-evident facts 
the testimony of her own senses, — even Hollingsworth’s 
Gelf-accusation, had he volunteered it, — would have 
weighed not the value of a mote of thistle-down on the 
other side. So secure was she of his right, that she 
never thought of comparing it with another’s wrong, but 
left the latter to itself. 

Hollingsworth drew her arm within his, and soon dis- 
appeared with her among the trees. 1 cannot imagine 
how Zenobia knew when they were out of sight ; she 
never glanced again towards them. But, retaining a 
proud attitude so long as they might have thrown back 
a retiring look, they were no sooner departed, — utterly 
departed, — than she began slowly to sink down. It was 
as if a great, invisible, irresistible weight were pressing 
her to the earth. Settling upon her knees, she leaned 
her forehead against the rock, and sobbed convulsively ; 
dry sobs they seemed to be, such as have nothing to dc 
with tears. 


17 


XXVI. 

ZENOBIA AND COVERDALE. 

Zenobia had entirely forgotten me. She fancied 
herself alone with her great grief. And had it been 
only a common pity that I felt for her, — the pity that 
her proud nature would have repelled, as the one worst 
wrong which the world yet held in reserve, — the sacred- 
ness and awfulness of the crisis might have impelled me 
to steal away silently, so that not a dry leaf should 
rustle under my feet. I would have left her to struggle, 
in that solitude, with only the eye of God upon her. 
But, so it happened, I never once dreamed of question- 
ing my right to be there now, as I had questioned it 
just before, when I came so suddenly upon Hollings- 
worth and herself, in the passion of their recent debate. 
It suits me not to explain what was the analogy that 1 
saw, or imagined, between Zenobia’s situation and mine; 
imr, I believe, will the reader detect this one secret, 
hidden beneath many a revelation which perhaps con- 
cerned me less. In simple truth however, as Zenobia 
leaned her forehead against the rock, shaken with that 
tearless agony, it seemed to me that the self-same pang 
with hardly mitigated torment, leaped thrilling from hei 
neart-strings to my own. Was it wrong, therefore, if I 
felt myself consecrated to the priesthood by sympathy 
like this, and called upon to minister to this woman s 
affliction, so far as mortal could ? 


ZENOBIA AND COVERDALE. 


259 


Bui., indeed, what could mortal do for her? Nothing! 
The attempt would be a mockery and an anguish. 
Time, it is true, would steal away her grief and bury ’* 
and the best of her heart in the same grave But Des- 
tiny itself, methought, in its kindliest mood, could di 
no better for Zenobia, in the way of quick relief, than to 
cause the impending rock to impend a little further, and 
fall upon her head. So I leaned against a tree, and 
listened to her sobs, in unbroken silence. She was half 
prostrate, half kneeling, with her forehead still pressed 
against the rock. Her sobs were the only sound ; she 
did not groan, nor give any other utterance to her dis- 
tress. It was all involuntary. 

At length, she sat up, put back her hair, and stared 
about hei with a bewildered aspect, as if not distinctly 
recollecting the scene through which she had passed, 
nor cognizant of the situation in which it left her. Her 
face and brow were almost purple with the rush of blood. 
They whitened, however, by and by, and for some time 
retained this death-like hue. She put her hand to her 
forehead, with a gesture that made me forcibly conscious 
of an intense and living pain there. 

Her glance, wandering wildly to and fro, passed over 
me several times, without appearing to inform her of 
my presence. But, finally, a look of recognition 
gleamed from her eyes into mine. 

“Is it you, Miles Coverdale?” said she, smiling, 
“ Ah, perceive what you are about ! You are turning 
this whole affair into a ballad. Pray let me hear as 
many stanzas as you happen to have ready ! ” 

“ O, hush, Zenobia !” I answered. “ Heaven know* 
what an acne is in my soul ! ” 


260 


THE BLITHE DALE ROMANCE. 


“ It is genuine tragedy, is it not ?” rejoined Zenobia 
with a sharp, light laugh. “ And you are willing to 
allow, peihaps, that I have had hard measure. But it is 
a woman’s doom, and I have deserved it like a woman ; 
so let there be no pity, as, on my part, there shall be no 
complaint. It is all right, now, or will shortly be so. 
But, Mr. Coverdale, by all means write this ballad, and 
put your soul’s ache into it, and turn your sympathy to 
good account, as other poets do, and as poets must, 
unless they choose to give us glittering icicles instead of 
lines of fire. As for the moral, it shall be distilled into 
the final stanza, in a drop of bitter honey.” 

“ What shall it be, Zenobia ? ” I inquired, endeavor- 
ing to fall in with her mood. 

“ O, a very old one will serve the purpose,” she 
replied. “ There are no new truths, much as we have 
prided ourselves on finding some. A moral ? Why, 
this : — that, in the battle-field of life, the downright 
stroke, that would fall only on a man’s steel head-piece, 
is sure to light on a woman’s heart, over which she 
wears no breastplate, and whose wisdom it is, therefore, 
to keep out of the conflict. Or, this : — that the whole 
universe, her own sex and yours, and Providence, or 
Destiny, to boot, make common cause against the 
woman who swerves one hair’s breadth out of the beaten 
track. Yes ; and add (for I may as well own it, now) 
that, with that one hair’s breadth, she goes all astray 
and never sees the world in its true aspect afterwards ’ * 

“ This last is too stern a moral,” I observed. “ Can 
not we soften it a little ? ” 

“ Do it, if you like, at your own peril, not on mj 
responsibility,” she answered. Then, with a sudden 


7.EN0BIA AND COVERDALE. 


2b 1 


change of subject, she went on : “ After all, ne has 

Hung away what would have served him better than 
the poor, pale flower he kept. What can Priscilla do 
for him ? Put passionate warmth into his heart, when 
it shall be chilled with frozen hopes? Strengthen his 
honds, when they are weary with much doing and no 
performance ? No ! but only tend towards him with a 
blind, instinctive love, and hang her little, puny weak 
ness for a clog upon his arm ! She cannot even give 
him such sympathy as is worth the name. For will he 
never, in many an hour of darkness, need that proud 
intellectual sympathy which he might have had from 
me ? — the sympathy that would flash light along his 
course, and guide as well as cheer him ? Poor Hoi* 
lingsworth ! Where will he find it now ? ” 

“ Hollingsworth has a heart of ice ! ” said I, bitterly. 
“ He is a wretch ! ” 

“ Do him no wrong,” interrupted Zenobia, turning 
haughtily upon me. “ Presume not to estimate a man 
like Hollingsworth. It was my fault, all along, and none 
of his. I see it now ! He never sought me. Why 
should he seek me ? What had I to offer him ? A 
miserable, bruised and battered heart, spoilt long before 
he met me. A life, too, hopelessly entangled with a vil- 
lain’s ! He did well to cast me off. God be praised, 
he did it ! And yet, had he trusted me, and borne 
with me a little longer, I would have saved him all this 
trouble.” 

She was silent for a time, and stood with her eyes 
fixed on the ground. Again raising them, her look wa« 
more mild and calm. 

“ Miles Coverdale ! ” said she. 


262 


THE BLITHEDALE KOMANCK 


“ Well, Zenobia,” I responded. “ Can Ido ^ou any 
service ? ” 

“ Very little,” she replied. “But it is my purpose, as 
you may well imagine, to remove from Blithedale ; and, 
most likely, I may not see Hollingsworth again. A 
woman in my position, you understand, feels scarcely at 
her ease among former friends. New faces — unaccus- 
tomed looks — those only can she tolerate. She would 
pine among familiar scenes ; she would be apt to blush, 
too, under the eyes that knew her secret ; her heart might 
throb uncomfortably ; she would mortify herself, I sup- 
pose, with foolish notions of having sacrificed the honor 
of her sex at the foot of proud, contumacious man. 
Poor womanhood, with its rights and wrongs! Here 
will be new matter for my course of lectures, at the idea 
of which you smiled, Mr. Coverdale, a month or two 
ago. But, as you have really a heart and sympathies, 
as far as they go, and as I shall depart without seeing 
Hollingsworth, I must entreat you to be a messenger 
between him and me.” 

“ Willingly,” said I, wondering at the strange way in 
which her mind seemed to vibrate from the deepest ear- 
nest to mere levity. “ What is the message ? ” 

“ True, — what is it? ” exclaimed Zenobia. “ After 
all, I hardly know. On better consideration, I have no 
message. Tell him, — tell him something pretty and 
pathetic, that will come nicely and sweetly into your 
ballad, — anything you please, so it be tender and 
submissive enough. Tell him he has murdered me ! 
Tell him that I ’ll haunt him ! ” — she spoke these 
words with the wildest energy. — “ And give him — nr> 
give Pc sc ill? — this ! ” 


ZENOBIA AND COVERDALE. 


2f»3 


Thus saying. she took the jewelled flower out of lit r 
haj ; and it struck me as the act of a queen, when 
worsted in a combat, discrowning herself, as if she found 
a sort of relief in abusing all her pride. 

“ Bid her weax this for Zenobia’s sake,” she continued. 
“ She is a pretty little creature, and will make as soft 
and gentle a wife as the veriest Bluebeard could desire. 
Pity that she must fade so soon ! These delicate and 
p.my maidens always do. Ten years hence, let Hol- 
lingsworth look at my face and Priscilla’s, and then 
choose betwixt them. Or, if he pleases, let him do it 
now.” 

How magnificently Zenobia looked, as she said this ! 
The effect of her beauty was even heightened by the 
over-consciousness and self-recognition of it, into which, 
I suppose, Hollingsworth’s scorn had driven her. She 
understood the look of admiration in my face ; and - 
Zenobn 'o the last — it gave her pleasure. 

“ It is an endless pity,” said she, “ that I had not 
bethought myself of winning your heart, Mr. Coverdale, 
instead of Hollingsworth’s. I think I should have suc- 
ceeded ; and many women would have deemed you the 
worthier conquest of the two. You are certainly much 
the handsomest man. But there is a fate in these 
things. And beauty, in a man, has been of little 
account with me, since my earliest girlhood, when, la 
once, it turned my head. Now, farewell ! ” 

“ Zenobia, whither are you going ? ” I asked. 

'* No matter where,” said she. “ But I am weary of 
this place, and sick to death of playing at philanthropy 
and progress. Of all varieties of mock-life, we have 
surely b. unde red into the very emptiest mocktsrv in 


264 


THE BLITHEDALE ROMANCE. 


effort to establish the one true system. I have done 
with it; anl Blithedale must find another woman to 
superintend the laundry, and you, Mr. Coverdale, 
another nurse to make your gruel, the next time you fall 
ill. It was, indeed, a foolish dream ! Yet it gave us 
some pleasant summer days, and bright hopes, while 
they lasted. It can do no more ; nor will it avail us to 
shed tears over a broken bubble. Here is my hand ! 
Adieu!” 

She gave me her hand, with the same free, whole- 
souled gesture as on the first afternoon of our acquaint- 
ance , and, being greatly moved, I bethought me of no 
better method of expressing my deep sympathy than to 
carry it to my lips. In so doing, I perceived that this 
white hand — so hospitably warm when I first touched 
it, five months since — was now cold as a veritable piece 
of snow. 

“ How very cold ! ” I exclaimed, holding it between 
both my own, with the vain idea of warming it. “ What 
can be the reason ? It is really death-like ! ” 

“ The extremities die first, they say,” answered Zeno- 
bia, laughing. “ And so you kiss this poor, despised, 
rejected hand! Well, my dear friend, I thank you. You 
have reserved your homage for the fallen. Lip of man 
will never touch my hand again. I intend to become a 
Catholic, for the sake of going into a nunnery. When 
you next hear of Zenobia, her face will be behind the 
black veil ; so look your last at it now — for all is over . 
Once more, farewell ! ” 

She withdrew her hand, yet left a lingering pressure, 
which I felt long afterwards. So intimately connecter 
as I had been with perhaps the only man in whom she 


ZENOBIA AND COVER DALE. 


265 


was eve/ truly interested, Zenobia looked on me as the 
representative of all the past, and was conscious that, in 
bidding me adieu, she likewise took final leave of Hol- 
lingsworth, and of this whole epoch of her life. Never 
did her beauty shine out more lustrously than in the 
last glimpse that I had of her. She departed, and was 
soon hidden among the trees. 

But, whether it was the strong impression of the fore- 
going scene, or whatever else the cause, I was affected 
with a fantasy that Zenobia had not actually gone, but 
was still hovering about the spot and haunting it. I 
seemed to feel her eyes upon me. It was as if the vivid 
coloring of her character had left a brilliant stain upon 
the air. By degrees, how r ever, the impression grew less 
distinct. I flung myself upon the fallen leaves at the 
base of Eliot’s pulpit. The sunshine withdrew up the 
tree-trunks, and flickered on the topmost boughs ; gray 
twilight made the w r ood obscure; the stars brightened 
out ; the pendent boughs became wet with chill autumnal 
dews. But I was listless, worn out with emotion on my 
own behalf and sympathy for others, and had no heart 
to leave my comfortless lair beneath the rock. 

I must have fallen asleep, and had a dream, all the 
circumstances of which utterly vanished at the moment 
when they converged to some tragical catastrophe, and 
thus grew too powerful for the thin sphere of slumber that 
enveloped them. Starting from the ground, I found the 
risen moon shining upon the rugged face of the jock; 
and myself all in a tremble. 


XXVII. 

MIDNIGHT. 

It could not have been far from midnight when I 
came beneath Hollingsworth’s window, and, finding it 
open, flung in a tuft of grass with earth at the roots, and 
heard it fall upon the floor. He was either awake or 
sleeping very lightly ; for scarcely a moment had gone 
by, before he looked out, and discerned me standing in 
the moonlight. 

“ Is it you, Coverdale ? ” he asked. “ What is the 
matter ? ” 

“ Come down to me, Hollingsworth ! ” I answered. 
“ I am anxious to speak with you.” 

The strange tone of my own voice startled me, and 
him, probably, no less. He lost no time, and soon issued 
from the house-door, with his dress half arranged. 

“ Again, what is the matter ? ” he asked, impatiently. 

“ Have you seen Zenobia,” said I, “ since you parted 
from her, at Eliot’s pulpit ? : 

“No,” answered Hollingsworth; “nor did I expect 
it.” 

His voice was deep, but had a tremor in it. Hardly 
had he spoken, when Silas Foster thrust his head, done 
up in a cotton handkerchief, out of another window, and 
took what he called — as it literally was — a squint a 
us 

** Wed, folks, w hat are ye about here ? ” he demanded 


MIDNIGHT. 


267 


'•Aha. are you there, Miles Coverdale? You have 
been turning night into day, since you left us, I reckon ; 
and so you find it quite natural to come prowling about 
the house at this time o’ night, frightening my old 
woman out of her wits, and making her disturb a tired 
man out of his best nap. In with you, you vagabond, 
and to bed ! ” 

“Dress yourself quietly, Foster,” said I. “We want 
your assistance.” 

I could not, for the life of me, keep that strange tone 
out of my voice. Silas Foster, obtuse as were his sensi- 
bilities, seemed to feel the ghastly earnestness that was 
conveyed in it as well as Hollingsworth did. He 
immediately withdrew his head, and I heard him yawn- 
ing, muttering to his wife, and again yawning heavily, 
while he hurried on his clothes. Meanwhile, I showed 
Hollingsworth a delicate handkerchief, marked with a 
well-known cipher, and told where I had found it, and 
other circumstances, which had filled me with a suspicion 
so terrible that I left him, if he dared, to shape it out for 
•himself. By the time my brief explanation was finished, 
we were joined by Silas Foster, in his blue woolJen 
frock. 

“Well, boys,” cried he, peevishly, “what is to pay 
now ? ” 

“ Tell him, Hollingsworth,” said I. 

Hollingsworth shivered, perceptibly, and drew in a 
hard breath betwixt his teeth. He steadied himself, 
however, and, looking the matter more firmly in the 
face thm I had done, explained to Foster my suspicions, 
and the grounds of them, with a distinctness from which 
in spite if my utmost efforts, my w T ords had swerved 


263 


THE BLITHEDALE ROMANCE. 


aside. The tough-nerved yeoman, in his comment, pm 
a finish on the business, and brought out the hideous 
idea in its full terror, as if he were removing the napkin 
from the face of a corpse. 

“ And so you think she’s drowned herself?” he cried. 

I turned away my face. 

“ What on earth should the young woman do that 
for ? ” exclaimed Silas, his eyes half out of his head with 
mere surprise. “ Why, she has more means than she 
can use or waste, and lacks nothing to make her com- 
fortable, but a husband, and that’s an article she could 
have, any day. There ’s some mistake about this, I tell 
you ! ” 

“ Come,” said I, shuddering; “let us go and ascertain 
the truth.” 

“ Well, well,” answered Silas Foster; “just as you 
say. We ’ll take the long pole, with the hook at the 
end, that serves to get the bucket out of the draw-well, 
when the rope is broken. With that, and a couple of 
long-handled hay-rakes, I ’ll answer for finding her, if 
she ’s anywhere to be found. Strange enough ! Zenobia 
drown herself ! No, no ; I don’t believe it. She had 
too much sense, and too much means, and enjoyed life i 
great deal too well.” 

When our few preparations were completed, we 
hastened, by a shorter than the customary route, through 
fields and pastures, and across a portion of the meadow, 
to the particular spot on the river-bank which I had 
paused to contemplate in the course of my afternoon’s 
ramble. A nameless presentiment had again drawn me 
thither, ifter leaving Eliot’s pulpit. I showed my com 
panions where I had found the handkerchief, and pointed 


MIDNIGHT. 


269 


to two or three footsteps, impressed into the clayey mar- 
gin, and tending towards the water. Beneath its shal- 
low verge, among the water-weeds, there were further 
traces, as yet unobliterated by the sluggish current, 
which was there almost at a stand-still. Silas Foster 
thrust his face down close to these footsteps, and picked 
up a shoe that had escaped my observation being half 
imbedded in the mud. 

“ There ’s a kid shoe that never was made on a Yan- 
kee last,” observed he. “ I know enough of shoemaker’s 
craft to tell that. French manufacture ; and, see what a 
high instep ! and how evenly she trod in it ! There 
never was a woman that stept handsomer in her shoe3 
than Zenobia did. Here,” he added, addressing Hol- 
lingsworth ; “ would you like to keep the shoe ? ” 

Hollingsworth started back. 

“Give it to me, Foster,” said I. 

I dabbled it in the water, to rinse off the mud, ana 
have kept it ever since. Not far from this spot lay an 
old, leaky punt, drawn up on the oozy river-side, and 
generally half full of water. It served the angler to go 
in quest of pickerel, or the sportsman to pick up his wild 
ducks. Setting this crazy bark afloat, I seated myself 
m the stern with the paddle, while Hollingsworth sat in 
the bows with the hooked pole, and Silas Foster amid- 
ships with a hay-rake. 

“ It puts me in mind of my young days,” remarked 
Silas, “ when I used to steal out of bed to go bobbing for 
horn-pouts and eels. Heigh-ho ! — well, life and death 
together make sad work for us all ! Then I was a boy, 
bobbing for fish ; and now I am getting tc be an old fel- 
low, and here I be, groping for a dead body ! I tell you 


270 


THE BLITIIEDALh ROMANCE. 


what, lads, if l thought anything had really happened to 
Zenobia, I should feel kind o’ sorrowful.” 

“I wish, at least, you would hold your tongue,” mut* 
tered I. 

The moon, that night, though past the full, was stiL’ 
large and oval, and having risen between eight and nine 
o’clock, now shone aslantwise over the river, throwing 
the high, opposite bank, with its woods, into deep 
shadow, but lighting up the hither shore pretty effectu- 
ally. Not a ray appeared to fall on the river itself. It 
lapsed imperceptibly away, a broad, black, inscrutable 
depth, keeping its own secrets from the eye of man, as 
impenetrably as mid-ocean could. 

“Well, Miles Co verdale,” said Foster, “you are the 
helmsman. How do you mean to manage this busi 
ness ? ” 

“ I shall let the boat drift, broadside foremost, past 
that stump,” I replied. “I know the bottom, having 
sounded it in fishing. The shore, on this side, after the 
first step or two, goes off very abruptly ; and there is a 
pool, just by the stump, twelve or fifteen feet deep. 
The current could not have force enough to sweep any 
sunken object, even if partially buoyant, out of that h\ 

W.” 

“Come, then,” said Silas; “but I doubt whether i 
can touch bottom with this hay-rake, if it ’s as deep as 
jou say. Mr. Hollingsworth, I think you’ll be the 
lucky man to-night, such luck as it is.” 

We floated past the stump. Silas Foster plied his 
rake manfully, poking it as far as he could into the 
water, and immersing the whole length of his arm 
besides He jingsworth at first sat motionless, with the 


MIDNIGHT. 


27) 


noolced pole elevated in the air. But, by and by, with a 
nervous and jerky movement, he began to plunge it into 
the blackness that upbore us, setting his teeth, and mak- 
ing precisely such thrusts, methought, as if he were 
stabbing at a deadly enemy. I bent over the side of the 
boat. So obscure, however, so awfully mysterious, was 
that dark stream, that — and the thought made me 
shiver like a leaf — I might as well have tried to look 
into the enigma of the eternal world, to discover what 
had becomq of Zenobia’s soul, as into the river’s depths, 
to find her body. And there, perhaps, she lay, with her 
face upward, while the shadow of the boat, and my 
own pale face peering downward, passed slowly betwixt 
her and the sky ! 

Once, twice, thrice, I paddled the boat up stream, and 
again suffered it to glide, with the river’s slow, funereal 
motion, downward. Silas Foster had raked up a large 
mass of stuff, which, as it came towards the surface, 
looked somewhat like a flowing garment, but proved to 
be a monstrous tuft of water-weeds. Hollingsworth, 
with a gigantic effort, upheaved a sunken log. When 
once free of the bottom, it rose partly out of water, — all 
weedy and slimy, a devilish-looking object, which the 
ir oon had not shone upon for half a hundred years, — 
tnen plunged again, and sullenly returned to its old 
resting-v>lace, for the remnant of the century. 

“That looked ugly!” quoth Silas. “I half thought 
it was ttie evil one, on the same errand as ourselves, — 
searching for Zenobia.” 

“ He shall never get her, said I, giving the boat a 
strong impulse. 

“ That ’s not for you to say, my boy,” retorted the 


272 


THE BLITHE DALE ROMANCE. 


yeoman. “Pray God he never has, and nweT may 
Slow work this, however ! 1 should really be glad to 

find something ! Pshaw ! What a notion that is, when 
the only good luck would be to paddle, and drift, and 
poke, and grope, hereabouts, till morning, and have our 
labor for our pains ! For my part, I should n’t wonder 
if the creature had only lost her shoe in the mud, and 
saved her soul alive, after all. My stars ! how she will 
laugh at us, to-morrow morning ! ” 

It is indescribable what an image of Zenobia — at the 
breakfast-table, full of warm and mirthful life — this sur- 
mise of Silas Foster’s brought before my mind. The 
terrible phantasm of her death was thrown by it into the 
remotest and dimmest back-ground, where it seemed to 
grow as improbable as a myth. 

“Yes, Silas, it may be as you say,” cried I. 

The drift of the stream had again borne us a lit- 
tle below the stump, when I felt, — yes, felt, for it 
was as if the iron hook had smote my breast, — felt 
Hollingsworth’s pole strike some object at the bottom 
of the river ! He started up, and almost overset the 
boat. 

“ Hold on ! ” cried Foster; “ you have her ! ” 

Putting a fury of strength into the effort, Hollings- 
worth heaved amain, and up came a white swash to 
the surface of the river. It was the flow of a woman’s 
garments. A little higher, and we saw her dark hair 
streaming down the current. Black River of Death, 
thou hadst yielded up thy victim ! Zenobia was found 
Silas Foster laid hold of the body; Hollingsworth, 
likewise, grappled with it ; and I steered towards the 
bank, gazing all the while at Zenobia, whose 1? nbs were 


MIDNIGHT. 


273 


fcwaying in the current close at the boat’s side. Arriv- 
ing. neir the shore, we all three stept into the water, 
bore her out, and laid her on the ground beneath a 
tree. 

“ Poor child ! ” said Foster, — and his dry old heart, 
I verily believe, vouchsafed a tear, — “I’m sorry for 
her!” 

Were I to describe the perfect horror of the spectacle, 
the reader might justly reckon it to me for a sin and 
shame. For more than twelve long years I have borne 
it in my memory, and could now reproduce it as freshlj 
as if it were still before my eyes. Of all modes of 
death, methinks it is the ugliest. Her wet garments 
swathed limbs of terrible inflexibility. She was the 
marble image of a death-agony. Her arms had grown 
rigid in the act of struggling, and were bent before heT 
with clenched hands ; her knees, too, were bent, and — 
thank God for it ! — in the attitude of prayer. Ah, that 
rigidity ! It is impossible to bear the terror of it. It 
seemed, — I must needs impart so much of my own mis- 
erable idea, — it seemed as if her body must keep the 
same position in the coffin, and that her skeleton would 
keep it in the grave ; and that when Zenobia rose at the 
day of judgment, it would be in just the same attitude 
as now ! 

One hope I had ; and that, too, was mingled half with 
fear. She knelt, as if in prayer. With the last, chok 
ing consciousness, her soul, bubbling out through her 
lips, it may be, had given itself up to the Father, recon- 
ciled and penitent. But her arms ! They were bent 
before hot, as if she struggled against Providence ir 
IS 


274 


THE BLITHE DALE ROMANCE. 


never-ending hostility. Her hands ! They weie clenched 
in imm itigable defiance. Away with the hideous thought 
The flitting moment after Zenobia sank into the dark 
pool — when her breath was gone, and her soul at her 
lips — was as long, in its capacity of God’s infinite foj- 
giveness, as the lifetime of the world ! 

Foster bent over the body, and carefully examined h, 
“ You have wounded the poor thing’s breast,” said ho 
to Hollingsworth ; “ close by her heart, too ! ” 

“ Ha ! ” cried Hollingsworth, with a start. 

And so he had, indeed, both before and after death ! 

“ See ! ” said Foster. “ That ’s the place where the 
iron struck her. It looks cruelly, but she never felt 
it! ” 

He endeavored to arrange the arms of the corpse 
decently by its side. His utmost strength, however, 
scarcely sufficed to bring them down ; and rising again, 
the next instant, they bade him defiance, exactly as 
Defore. He made another effort, with the same result. 

“ In God’s name, Silas Foster,” cried I, with bitter 
indignation, “ let that dead woman alone ! ” 

“ Why, man, it ’s not decent ! ” answered he, staring 
at me in amazement. “ I can’t bear to see her looking 
so I Well, well,” added he, after a third effort, “ ’t is of 
no use, sure enough ; and we must leave the women tc 
do their best with her, after we get to the house. The 
sooner that ’s done, the better.” 

We took two rails from a neighboring fence, ana 
formed a bier by laying across some boards from the bot- 
tom of the boat. And thus we bore Zenobia home- 
ward. Six hours before, how beautiful ! At midnight 
what a horror A reflection occurs tc me that wil 


MIDNIGHT. 


215 


show ludicrously, I doubt not, on my page, but must 
come in, for its sterling truth. Being the woman that 
she was, could Zenobia have foreseen all these ugly cir- 
cumstances of death, — how ill it would become her, the 
altogether unseemly aspect which she must put on, and 
especially old Silas Foster’s efforts to improve the mat- 
ter, — she would no more have committed the dreadful 
act than have exhibited herself to a public assembly in a 
badly-fitting garment ! Zenobia, I have often thought, 
was not quite simple in her death. She had seen pic- 
tures, I suppose, of drowned persons in lithe and grace- 
ful attitudes. And she deemed it well and decorous to 
die as so many village maidens have, wronged in their 
first love, and seeking peace in the bosom of the old, 
familiar stream, — so familiar that they could not dread 
it, — where, in childhood, they used to bathe their little 
feet, wading mid-leg deep, unmindful of wet skirts. But 
in Zenobia’s case there was some tint of the Arcadian 
affectation that had been visible enough in all our lives 
for a few months past. 

This, however, to my conception, takes nothing tror, 
the tragedy. For, has not the world come to an awfully 
sophisticated pass, when, after a certain degree of ac 
quaintance with it, we cannot even put ourselves t * 
death in whole-hearted simplicity ? 

Slowly, slowly, with many a dreary pause, — resting 
the bier often on some rock, or balancing it across l 
mossy log, to take fresh hold, — we bore our burthen 
onward through the moonlight, and at last laid Zenobia 
on the floor of the old farm-house. By and by came 
three or four withered women, and stood whispering 
around the corpse, peering at it through their spectacles 


2 IQ 


THE b:itiiedale romance. 


nolding up their skinny hands, shaking their mght-capt 
heads, and taking counsel of one another’s experience 
what was to be done. 

With those tire women we left Zenobia . 


XXVIII. 

BLITIIEDALE PASTURE. 

Buthedale, thus far in its progress, had never lound 
the necessity of a burial-ground. There was some con- 
sultation among us in what spot Zenobia might most 
fitly be laid. It was my own wish that she should sleep 
at the base of Eliot’s pulpit, and that on the rugged 
front of the rock the name by which we familiarly knew 
her, — Zenobia, — and not another word, should be 
deeply cut, and left for the moss and lichens to fill up at 
their long leisure. But Hollingsworth (to whose ideas 
on this point great deference was due) made it his request 
that her grave might be dug on the gently sloping hill- 
side, in th» wide pasture, where, as we once supposed, 
Zenobia and he had planned to build their cottage. And 
thus it was done, accordingly. 

She was buried very much as other people have been 
for hundreds of years gone by. In anticipation of a 
death, we Blithedale colonists had sometimes set our 
fancies at work to arrange a funereal ceremony, which 
should be the proper symbolic expression of our spiritual 
faith and eternal hopes ; and this we meant to substi- 
tute for those customary rites which were moulded orig- 
inally out of the Gothic gloom, and by long use, like an 
old velvet pall, have so much more than their first death- 
smell in them. But when the occasion came, we found 
it the simplest and truest thing, after all, to content our 


213 


THE BLITHEDALE ROMANCE. 


selves with the old fashion, taking away what we cou.tl, 
but interpolating no novelties, and particularly avoiding 
all frippery of flowers and cheerful emblems. The pro- 
cession moved from the farm-house. Nearest the dead 
walked an old man in deep mourning, his face most]} 
concealed in a white handkerchief, and with Priscilla 
leaning on his arm. Hollingsworth and myself came 
next. We all stood around the narrow niche in the cold 
earth ; all saw the coffin lowered in ; all heard the rattle 
of the crumbly soil upon its lid, — that final sound, which 
mortality awakens on the utmost verge of sense, as if in 
the vain hope of bringing an echo from the spiritual 
world. 

I noticed a stranger, — a stranger to most of those 
present, though known to me, — who, after the coffin 
had descended, took up a handful of earth, and flung it 
first into the grave. I had given up Hollingsworth’s 
arm, and now found myself near this man. 

“It was an idle thing — a foolish thing — for Zeno 
nia to do,” said he. “ She w r as the last woman in the 
world to whom death could have been necessary. It was 
too absurd ! I have no patience with her.” 

“ Why so ? ” I inquired, smothering my horror at his 
rold comment in my eager curiosity to discover some 
tangible truth as to his relation with Zenobia. “ If any 
crisis could justify the sad wrong she offered to herself, 
it was surely that in which she stood. Everything had 
failed her; — prosperity in the world’s sense, for her 
opulence was gone, — the heart’s prosperity, in love. 
And there was a secret burthen on her, the nature ot 
which is best known to you. Young as she was, she 
aad tried ’\fe fully, had no more to hope, and something 


BLITHEDALE PASTURE. 


279 


perhaps, to fear. Had Providence taken her away in its 
own holy hand, I should have thought it the kindest 
dispensation that could be awarded to one so wrecked.” 

* You mistake the matter completely,” rejoined West- 
ervelt. 

“ What, then, is your own view of it ? ” I asked. 

“ Her mind was active, and various in its powers,” 
said he. “ Her heart had a manifold adaptation ; her 
constitution an infinite buoyancy, which (had she pos- 
sessed only a little patience to await the reflux of her 
troubles) would have borne her upward, triumphantly 
for twenty years to come. Her beauty would not have 
waned — or scarcely so, and surely not beyond the reach 
of art to restore it — in all that time. She had life’s 
summer all before her, and a hundred varieties of bril- 
liant success. What an actress Zenobia might have 
been ! It was one of her least valuable capabilities. 
How forcibly she might have wrought upon the world, 
either directly in her own person, or by her influence 
upon some man, or a series of men, of controlling gen- 
ius ! Every prize that could be worth a woman’s hav- 
ing — and many prizes which other women are too 
f.imid to desire — lay within Zenobia’s reach.” 

“ In all this,” I observed, “ there would have bee^ 
nothing to satisfy her heart.” 

“ Her heart ! ” answered Westervelt, contemptuously. 
“ That troublesome organ (as she had hitherto found it) 
would have been kept in its due place and degree, and 
have had all the gratification it could fairly claim. She 
would soon have established a control over it. Love 
had failed her, you say. Had it never failed her be- 
Core? Yet she survived it, and loved again, — - possibly 


280 


THE BLITHE DALE ROMANCE. 


not once alone, nor twice either. And now to drown 
nerself for yonder dreamy philanthropist ! ” 

“Who arc you,” I exclaimed, indignantly, “ that dare 
to speak thus of the dead? You seem to intend a 
eulogy, yet leave out whatever was noblest in her, and 
blacken while you mean to praise. I have long consid- 
ered you as Zenobia’s evil fate. Your sentiments con- 
firm me in the idea, but leave me still ignorant as to the 
mode in which you have influenced her life. The con- 
nection may have been indissoluble, except by death. 
Then, indeed, — always in the hope of God’s infinite 
mercy, — 1 cannot deem it a misfortune that she sleeps 
in yonder grave ! ” 

“No matter what I was to her,” he answered, gloom 
ily, yet without actual emotion. “ She is now beyond 
my reach. Had she lived, and hearkened to my coun- 
sels, we might have served each other well. But there 
Zenobia lies in yonder pit, with the dull earth over her. 
Twenty years of a brilliant lifetime thrown away for a 
mere woman’s whim ! ” 

Heaven deal with Westervelt according to his nature 
and deserts ! — that is to say, annihilate him. He was 
altogether earthy, worldly, made for time and its gross 
objects, and incapable — except by a sort of dim reflec- 
tion caught from other minds — of so much as one spir- 
itual idea. Whatever stain Zenobia had was caught 
from him ; nor does it seldom happen that a character 
of admirable qualities loses its better life because the 
atmosphere that should sustain it is rendered poisonous 
by such breath as this man mingled with Zenobia’s. 
Yet his reflections possessed their share of truth. It 
was a vvoM thought, that a woman of Zenobia’s diver* 


BLITIIEDALE PASTURE 


23} 


sifted capacity should have fancied herself irretrievaoly 
defeated on the broad battle-field of Lfe, and with no 
refuge, save to fall on her own sword, merely because 
Love had gone against her. It is nonsense, and a 
miserable wrong, — the result, like so many others, of 
masculine egotism, — that the success or failure of 
woman’s existence should be made to depend wholly on 
the affections, and on one species of affection, while 
man has such a multitude of other chances, that this 
seems but an incident. For its own sake, if it will do 
no more, the world should throw open all its avenues to 
the passport of a woman’s bleeding heart. 

As we stood around the grave, I looked often towards 
Priscilla, dreading to see her wholly overcome with 
grief. And deeply grieved, in truth, she was. But a 
character so simply constituted as hers has room only 
lor a single predominant affection. No other feeling 
can touch the heart’s inmost core, nor do it any deadly 
mischief. Thus, while we see that such a being respond;? 
to every breeze with tremulous vibration, and imagine 
that she must be shattered by the first rude blast, we 
find her retaining her equilibrium amid shocks that 
might have overthrown many a sturdier frame. So 
with Priscilla ; — her one possible misfortune was Hol- 
lingsworth’s unkindness; and tbit was destined nev ?r to 
befall her, — never yet, at least, — for Priscilla has not 
died. 

But Hollingsworth ! After all the evil that he did, 
are we to leave him thus, blest with the entire devotion 
of this one true heart, and with wealth at his disposal, 
to execute the long-contemplated project that had led 
him so far astray? What retribution is there here? 


THE BLITHEDALE ROMANCE 


282 


My mind being vexed with precisely this query, 1 mad* 
a journey, some years since, for the sole purpose of 
catching a last glimpse at Hollingsworth, and judging 
for myself whether he were a happy man or no. 1 
learned that he inhabited a small cottage, that his way 
of life was exceedingly retired, and that my only chance 
of encountering him or Priscilla was to meet them in a 
secluded lane, where, in the latter part of the afternoon, 
they were accustomed to walk. I did meet them, ac- 
cordingly. As they approached me, I observed in Hoi- 
ingsworth’s face a depressed and melancholy look, that 
seemed habitual ; — the powerfully-built man showed 
a self-distn stful weakness, and a childlike or childish 
tendency to press close, and closer still, to the side of the 
slender woman whose arm was within his. In Priscilla’s 
manner there was a protective and watchful quality, as 
if she felt herself the guardian of her companion ; but, 
likewise, a deep, submissive, unquestioning reverence 
and also a veiled happiness in her fair and quiet counte- 
nance. 

Drawing nearer, Priscilla recognized me, and gave 
me a kind and friendly smile, but with a slight gesture, 
which I could not help interpreting as an entreaty not to 
make myself known to Hollingsworth. Nevertheless, 
an impulse took possession of me, and compelled me to 
address him. 

“ I have come, Hollingsworth,” said I, “ to view yot.i 
grand edifice for the reformation of criminals. Is it 
finished yet ? ” 

“No, nor begun,” answered he, without raising hia 
eyes. “ A very small one answers all my purposes.” 

Priscilla *hrew me an upbraiding glance. But fi 


BLITHE DAiiE PASTURE. 


283 


spoke again, with a bitter and revengeful emotion, as if 
dinging a poisoned arrow at Hollingsworth’s heart. 

“ Up to this moment,” I inquired, “ how many crimi- 
nals have you reformed ? ” 

Not one,” said Hollingsworth, with his eyes still 
fixed on the ground. “Ever since we parted, I have 
been busy with a single murderer.” 

Then the tears gushed into my eyes, and I forgave 
him ; for I remembered the wild energy, the passionate 
shriek, with which Zenobia had spoken those words, — 
“ Tell him he has murdered me ! Tell him that I ’ll 
haunt him ! ” — and 1 knew what murderer he meant, 
and whose vindictive shadow dogged the side where 
Priscilla was not. 

The moral which presents itself to my reflections, as 
drawn from Hollingsworth’s character and errors, is 
simply this, — that, admitting what is called philan- 
thropy, when adopted as a profession, to be often useful 
by its ene r getic impulse to society at large, it is perilous 
to the individual whose ruling passion, in one exclusive 
channel, it thus becomes. It ruins, or is fearfully apt to 
ruin, the heart, the rich juices of which God never 
meant should be pressed violently out, and distilled into 
alcoholic liquor, by an unnatural process, but should 
render life sweet, bland, and gently beneficent, and 
insensibly influence other hearts and other lives to the 
same blessed end. I see in Hollingsworth an exemplifi- 
cation of the most awful truth in Bunyan’s book of such ; 
— from the very gate of heaven there is a by-way to 
the pit ! 

But, all this while, we have been standing by Zenobia’a 
grave. I have never since beheld it, but make no ques* 


2S4 


TOE BLITHEDALE ROMANCE. 


tion that the grass grew all the better, on that iittie 
parallelogram of pasture-land, for th^ decay of the beau- 
tiful woman who slept beneath. How much Nature seems 
to love us ! And how readily, nevertheless, without a sigh 
or a complaint, she converts us to a meaner purpose, when 
her highest one — that of conscious intellectual life and 
sensibility — has been untimely balked! While Ze 
nobia lived, Nature was proud of her, and directed all 
eyes upon that radiant presence, as her fairest handi- 
work. Zenobia perished. Will not Nature shed a 
tear ? Ah, no ! — she adopts the calamity at once into 
her system, and is just as well pleased, for aught we 
can see, with the tuft of ranker vegetation that grew jut 
of Zenobia’s heart, as with all the beauty whieh has 
bequeathed us no earthly representative except in this 
crop of weeds. It is because the spirit is inest imab e 
that the lifeless body is so little valued. 


XXIX. 

MILES COVERD ALE’S CONFESSION. 

It remains only to say a few words about myself. 
Not improbably, the reader might be willing to spare me 
the trouble ; for I have made but a poor and dim figure in 
my own narrative, establishing no separate interest, and 
suffering my colorless life to take its hue from other 
lives. But one still retains some little consideration for 
one’s self; so I keep these last two or three pages for 
my individual and sole behoof. 

But what, after all, have I to tell ? Nothing, nothing 
nothing ! I left Blithedale within the week after Zeno- 
bia’s death, and went back thither no more. The whole 
soil of our farm, for a long time afterwards, seemed but 
the sodded earth over her grave. I could not toil 
there, nor live upon its products. Often, however, in 
these years that are darkening around me, I remember 
our beautiful scheme of a noble and unselfish life ; ano 
how fair, in that first summer, appeared the prospeci 
that it might endure for generations, and be perfected; as 
the ages rolled away, into the system of a people and a 
world ! Were my former associates now there, — were 
*here only three or four of those true-hearted men still 
laboring in the sun, — I sometimes fancy that I should 
dii ?ct my world-wear}' footsteps thitherward, and entreat 


286 


THE BLITHE DALE ROMANCE. 


them to, receive me, for old friendship’s sake. More and 
more I feel that we had struck upon what ought to be a 
truth. Posterity may dig it up, and profit by it. The 
experiment, so far as its original projectors were con- 
cerned, proved, long ago, a failure ; first lapsing into 
Fourierism, and dying, as it well deserved, for this infi- 
delity to its own higher spirit. Where once we toiled 
with our whole hopeful hearts, the town-paupers, aged, 
nerveless, and disconsolate, creep sluggishly a-field 
Alas, what faith is requisite to bear up against such 
results of generous effort ! 

My subsequent life has passed, — I was going to say 
happily, — but, at all events, tolerably enough. I am 
now at middle age, — well, well, a step or two beyond 
the midmost point, and I care not a fig who knows it ! — 
a bachelor, with no very decided purpose of ever being 
otherwise. I have been twice to Europe, and spent a 
year or two rather agreeably at each visit. Being well 
to do in the world, and having nobody but myself to care 
foT, I live very much at my ease, and fare sumptuously 
every day. As for poetry, I have given it up, notwith- 
standing that Doctor Griswold — as the reader, of course, 
knows — has placed me at a fair elevation among our 
minor minstrelsy, on the strength of my pretty little vol- 
ume, published ten years ago. As regards human pro- 
gress (in spite of my irrepressible yearnings over the 
Blithedale reminiscences), let them believe in it who can, 
and aid in it who choose. If I could earnestly do either, 
it might be all the better for my comfort. As Hollings- 
worth once told me, I lack a purpose. How strange ! 
He was ruined, morally, by an overplus of the very same 
ingredient, the want of which, I occasionally suspect, has 


MILES COVERDALE’S CONFESSION. 


28 *i 


rendered my own life all an emptiness. I by no mean? 
wish to die. Yet, were there any cause, in this whole 
chaos of human strugg^, worth a sane man’s dying for, 
and which my death would benefit, then — provided, 
however, the effort did not involve an unreasonable 
amount of trouble — methinks I might be bold to offei 
up my life. If Kossuth, for example, would pitch tin 
battle-field of Hungarian rights within an easy ride of 
my abode, and choose a mild, sunny morning, aftei 
breakfast, for the conflict, Miles Coverdale would gladly 
be his man, for one brave rush upon the levelled bayo- 
nets. Further than that, I should be loth to pledge 
myself. 

I exaggerate my own defects. The reader must 
not take my own word for it, nor believe me alto- 
gether changed from the young man who once hoped 
strenuously, and struggled not so much amiss. Frost- 
ier heads than mine have gained honor in the world ; 
frostier hearts have lmbiueu new warmth, and been 
newly happy. Life, however, it must be owned, has 
come to rather an idle pass with me. Would my 
friends like to know what brought it thither ? There is 
one secret, — I have concealed it all along, and never 
meant to let the least whisper of it escape, — one foolish 
tittle secret, which possibly may have had something to 
do with these inactive years of meridian manhood, with 
my bachelorship, with the unsatisfied retrospect that I 
fling back on life, and my listless glance towards the 
future. Shall I reveal it ? It is an absurd thing for a 
man in his afternoon, — a man of the world, moreover, 
with these three white hairs in his brown mustache 
and that deepening track of a crow’s-foot on each temple 


2SS THE BLITHEDALE ROMANCE. 

- an absurd thing ever to have happened, and quite tno 
absurdest for an old bachelor, like me, to talk about. 
But it rises in my throat ; so let it come. 

I perceive, moreover, that the confession, brief as it 
shall be, will throw a gleam of light over my behavior 
throughout the foregoing incidents, and is, indeed, essen- 
tial to the full understanding of my story. The reader, 
therefore, since I have disclosed so much, is entitled to 
this one word more. As I write it, he will charitably 
suppose me to blush, and turn away my face : — 

I — I myself — was in love — with — Priscilla * 



























































































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